71 years ago tomorrow April 12.

https://www.yakimaherald.com/news/local ... 9bca5.html

I wonder if there any photos of this.

Kurt

I like the part where he died at 80, in bed assumedly.
GPS's, cell phones, ELB's, lightweight camp gear, he did it before all of those, badass!

Pretty sure someone posted that here before, but absolutely worth the repost. I fly by Rainier all the time. I always ask guys I'm flying with if they've ever heard about this, then forward them the article.

AEROPOD wrote:Pretty sure someone posted that here before, but absolutely worth the repost. I fly by Rainier all the time. I always ask guys I'm flying with if they've ever heard about this, then forward them the article.

The Yakima Herald ran the article on April 11 as an "It happened here" story. I figured, as it was the 71st anniversary on April 12, that it was worthy of a repost.

The original post, March 16, 2011
https://backcountrypilot.org/forum/dead ... -1951-7136

Mowich Lake, where he made a dead stick landing after the dead stick take Off.

Great story! Almost had to spend a night on a mountain with my Super Cub with no skis, just ABW. I landed on a rocky narrow dry spot on a mountain ridge at about 11,400 ft. elevation, with a cliff on one side and drifting snow on the other side and a steep rocky knoll drop off in front of the airplane where I came to a stop. When I tried to turn the airplane around to takeoff down hill back toward the mountain peak, I got stuck in the drifting snow up to the bottom of the aft fuselage with a Alaskan Babe bushwheel buried in the snow. It took several hours of digging, lifting and tugging to get the airplane up and out of the snow and turned around. It was starting to get cold as the Sun was going down, I climb in the airplane exhausted from getting it turned around, and started the engine right up. The next problem to deal with was a right quartering tailwind on takeoff, as I was digging the airplane out of the snow and getting it turned around the wind started blowing, it was dead calm when I landed. I had to takeoff down hill with a right quartering tailwind with about 10-15% slope with a cliff on my right side and drifting snow on the the left and a mountain peak 800 ft. straight in front of the airplane. As I was warming up the engine and getting ready takeoff, I was thinking to myself, as soon as I get this airplane airborne I have split second decision to break right or bank right and dive the airplane off the steep mountain cliff or bank left over the drifting snow off the mountain to avoid crashing into the mountain peak straight in front of the airplane. I ended going left off the mountain over the drifting snow once the airplane was airborne and had a great flight home. I got myself into this situation and I got myself out of it. Another day at the office of mountain flying! Don't ask me to post pictures, I think it might have been in a wilderness area.

At 8800' this winter, on skis, my engine kinda puked on startup. A very infrequent event, done it maybe 3-4 times in last 5 years, let's call it vapor lock and move on. No biggie, as I knew that getting it to clear it's throat was best done by WOT. What I forgot about, was the slope I was on, having no brakes, and the interlude of partial power while it's throat clearing occured. With no options other than continue the takeoff, I did so, safely, as here I am. Wasn't a true dead stick ski takeoff, but at about 1700 rpm at the prop (Rotax), partially.