I have been thinking about leaving aeroplanes unattended at backcountry airstrips.
It raises a lot of questions.

On the one hand, most of the reasons for going there involve the outdoors, which requires leaving the plane behind at the strip while you fish, hunt, hike or ride, etc. By definition a backcountry strip is far from most populace places and typically can only be accessed by air or a long, long walk. So you might think that precludes most "bad-apples" from being there, and may not be a bad place to leave an aircraft unattended.

But on the other hand;

- What about locking it or leaving it open?
Better someone peaks inside and finds nothing - they will get past a lock given time anyway and do a lot of damage?

- Tying down securely and covering up is an obvious concern. wind, sun, and rain can easily damage your ship. This has been discussed at length elsewhere. On the etiquitte topic, how far off the airstrip should you tie down a plane? Especially on strips with limited space, this can be a challenge.

-How long would you be prepared to leave a plane unattended, given the possibility of interference from the public (hikers, fishermmen, etc), chance of bad weather, and general stress-factor?

-What other considerations are there?

Within 2 days at Big Bar in Hells Canyon some f..king birds built a huge nest on top of my cylinders. Nose bowl plugs are coming along next time along with a shotgun. Bastards crapped all over the plane too. Of course pitot tube covers are also a must. I've also come out of more than one strip with yellow jackets for company. The takeoff roll really gets them excited!

One thing to consider in the backcountry. My old Canadian Geology professor confided in us, carry a gun in the field, your in the middle of nowhere, no help, no support, there are a lot of folks in the backwoods because they don't quite fit in with the rest of society and their values. Lets, see, Unabomber, lots of neo-nazi survivalist types, escaped convicts, of recent; underage little girl kidnappers. So you may get somebody who might look at your aircraft as a windfall source of income or a target.

In my own experience, not once but twice; the Alaskan State Troopers flew in in their canary yellow Navajo and arrested the dude fueling my aircraft in Cold Bay. You can only walk another 20 miles or so and run out of dry US land there. You have to do something nasty to get them to fly in looking for you, not just parking tickets.

Now that being said, you will probably never have any problems with your aircraft. LIke anyplace on the earth, you have to be careful.

One of our old 180's spent the winter tied down at the Dry Bay strip on the Alaska coast. Wasn't the best thing, but shit happens. We didn't own it then.

gbflyer wrote:One of our old 180's spent the winter tied down at the Dry Bay strip on the Alaska coast. Wasn't the best thing, but shit happens. We didn't own it then.

Probably a good thing it didn't winter at the Italio strip!!
There are cables tying the cabin down there.

Another consideration is the damage a bear can do to a fragile airplane. NO stored food inside is obvious, but what about the M&Ms that are rattling around from that flight with the kids another time. Probably a good idea to "detail" the plane out before you go. Might even be a reason to not eat trail mix or other goodies in the plane, that the residual bits can call a hungry bear for quite a distance.

If a moose decides to attack my fabric airplane, I guess I'll just be glad if I don't happen to be in it....

lc

Years ago, my then airplane partner flew our 182 into a ranch strip in northern Albany County, WY. When he returned only half an hour later, a herd of cows was using it as a rubbing post. Amazing amount of damage to the empennage--literally thousands of dollars worth. Fortunately they didn't do any damage to the flight control surfaces, he flew it home (which I wouldn't have done under the circumstances), the IA gave it an "it's still airworthy" thumbs-up, and we took it to Beegles in Greeley to be fixed.

So you never know. An airplane could sit for weeks without being touched, or for only a few minutes and be destroyed.

Cary

I flew up the Alcan when I was in high school. I stopped in Tok for a bit, and after being gone from the plane for less than a half hour, I returned to find a gentlemen doing his best to force the door open on the Cessna. He took off running poorly when I made noise to let him know I was there. The smell of a bad alcohol bender was still in the air when I got to the plane.

You never know. A lock slowed him down for a few minutes, I imagine, but he would have gotten in right away one way or another.

best i can do is buy really good insurance...dont think weve had too many probs of this type here in IDAHO...even the idiot with the girl didnt last long...glad that one came out the way that it did, kudos to the feds for gettin' on that one fast...

A friend just had his truck repainted and some windows replaced. Horses tried to eat it. They actually scratched the glass with their teeth. I'm always nervous at strips like Schafer Meadows and Moose Creek where horses and mules are turned out at night to graze the airstrip.

blackrock wrote:A friend just had his truck repainted and some windows replaced. Horses tried to eat it. They actually scratched the glass with their teeth. I'm always nervous at strips like Schafer Meadows and Moose Creek where horses and mules are turned out at night to graze the airstrip.

This too. I had a bunch of broom-tails try to eat my pickup once. They were out of fence posts I guess. Would get real expensive around an airplane.

In the series "Bush Pilots" one of the pilots is shown placing brush around his tires so the hyenas won't eat them overnight. wtf.

Hyenas do go after tires, they bit my 207 Soloy's main wheel, didn't flatten it, but it got rips in it. The worst was a hyena that bit the tip tank on a buddies Comanche. Mangled it and punctured it. Good thing our weasels never got so big on this continent.

Locking an airplane is always kind of an inside joke. Most of the windows can simply be punched in by scoring them and bashing.

I would not get to far from my ride in Alaska. More than one case of tires and radios disappearing from wrecked aircraft in Alaska before official discovery....with the bodies still in the plane.

And I am sure u have all seen the duck tape cub after a bear nearly destroyed it. hauling game meat will leave usually leak some and bears will dig it out

I've never lock it, but leaving it in bear country I always take my 12V car battery, small solar panel and enough electric fence to do two strands. I've seen where bears have left lots of track around the perimeter. It's not the best scenario but it is better than nothing because I did have a Cherokee Six tore apart without protection. Also think proper etiquette should have you parking far enough off to the side of the strip that it isn't dangerous enough that someone else coming into land might hit you. For me, it's the bears I don't trust but had a friend with buffalo rubbing his plane the wrong way.

I know of one Pitts Special that was subjected to a night of passion by a lonely bull. Didn't turn out so well for the Pitts.

My plane seems to attract bees. Might be the bright yellow.

My biggest fear with people in the "urban wilderness interface" is that some looky-loo will break something vital on the plane and then try to cover up the evidence. So far I've never had an issue, but I always do a thorough preflight if I've been away from the plane.

Landed a Hiller helicopter in a friends field, returned an hour later to find a cow had taken a large bite out of the tail rotor blade. Guess he (?) didn't take kindly to being disturbed.

Oregon180 wrote:My plane seems to attract bees. Might be the bright yellow.

That's funny, I have the same thing. Insects of all sorts love to be on the plane...

So who here regularly leaves their plane tied down and walks away, in the middle of nowhere?

dogpilot wrote:Hyenas do go after tires, they bit my 207 Soloy's main wheel, didn't flatten it, but it got rips in it. The worst was a hyena that bit the tip tank on a buddies Comanche. Mangled it and punctured it. Good thing our weasels never got so big on this continent.

Watching another episode now and they are fixing the horizontal stabilizer on one of the planes because the hyenas crushed it by biting it.

I'm starting to come to the conclusion that hyenas are assholes.

rw2 wrote:I'm starting to come to the conclusion that hyenas are assholes.