freakin awesome!!!!

Yesterday was another beautiful Fall day in Alaska. This small point on the ocean has millions of fossils.

Well I’m at it again, SQ2’n Alaska. Had to work through a couple of maintenance issues related to uncharacteristically sloppy maintenance from my mechanic but thanks to akgreg and some folks he introduced me to all is good now.

I have to say that after essentially seven months not flying the SQ2 (other then moving it between airports a couple of times) it’s taken me about 5 hours of flying to feel like I’m wearing it again. Nice to have 60+ miles of relatively benign beach, some tundra low benches and river gravel bars all within 30 minutes of my house to work out the kinks. Hope to start shooting some video tomorrow. Meantime I snapped a couple of pictures from today’s flight.

Nice one, looking good there Phil.

Good to see you back in the air Phil

Thanks my friends.

So, today finally got some good weather, well more or less, pretty windy and rainy on the way back but I got enough of a good window to go to my favorite place on the Pennisula.

Landed a lot of places on the river but this was the most photogenic.


Low tide gave me an opportunity to land a gravel bar amongst the icebergs.


Apparently my newly overhauled prop is leaking grease. Who knew? Every 20 minutes it looks like this. If any of you are missing grease don’t worry, I’ve got it. My mechanic is bringing a loaner prop on Saturday to swap out. Till then I fly, land, wipe, fly, land, wipe, fly, land, wipe. I took some video today as well, but it was shooting through the windshield. Haven’t looked at it yet but not hopeful. Guess I’ll have to do this all over again. Anyone want to come over and help me clean the plane?


I love this place.


All to myself as usual.

Barnstormer wrote:

Last year, I took on a leadership role in an organization I've been a part of for years right about the time you started this thread. I waited till now to finally crack it open...

WOW, Phil! Talk about "living the dream!"

I've been off flying status at work since having shoulder surgery back in February, but I'm getting my medical done next week and should be back at it by the end of June. The best part is, they won't be able to get me current until then, so I'll have several weeks of unfettered flying in the 185 to knock the rust off! Thanks for the huge heaping of inspiration.

Mike glad you are going to be back flying! Thanks for the kind comments.

Well looking through the grease in the video wasn't terrible so I went ahead and put it together. At the end I needed some music which is usually the hardest part. I start by looking for an appropriate song the same length as the video, rarely do I find one. But this time I did and it is perfect. So much so that tears welled up in my eyes to the time I watched it as I am fully aware how fortunate I am to be in the life I have now. Hope you enjoy the video as well.



https://vimeo.com/219118629

Phil, I'm in conflict. I'm happy for you and jealous of you at the same time. Unsure how to proceed.

Glad you're back at it!

Awesome job of editing/producing Phil, thanks!

Thanks guys.

So here it is, an 84” Whirlwind 284 STOL loaner prop while my 80” 200A is taken apart and resealed to stop the grease from slinging out. I’ve actually been wanting to test this prop.

The 284 is about 5mph faster but the 200A gets the SQ-2 off the ground quicker.

At least I can keep flying in the meantime. Just need to land places I know I can get out of with this prop.

Was a trashy wind day yesterday but I wanted to get some time on the Whirl Wind 284 prop. In addition to what I’ve already said about the differences between it and the 200A, the 284 also doesn’t cool the engine as well as the 200A during a climb.

Here is a short video from yesterday. The main purpose in showing it is my landing. When I came back the wind had picked up and was 90 degrees to the main runway. I set up for my short cross runway but the wind was really gusty and there is not a lot of wing clearance on that runway (note to self I need to cut some trees back and widen the wing clearance maybe another 10-15 feet). I tried landing south over the 65’ trees but it was so cross wind gusty that by the time I got down I didn’t have much runway left so I decided to land to the north.

The default direction to land at my place, even with a tailwind, is to the north. But because of the 65’ trees on the north end it has to be treated as a one-way which means you have to know where the go-around point is for the particular airplane and weather conditions.

So, the landing. You’ll see that I get rotor’d coming in. I’m staying high enough to deal with that and slow enough to get landed when I can all the while being prepared to “go around” before the spot where I’m committed to land no matter what. Staying out of “I’m landing” mentality is important in any landing but in particular in the backcountry, off-airport and one-ways.

(Case in point: This weekend a Mooney was landing at Lakeway Texas. He went off the end of the runway, across a golf course driving range across a street and into someone’s yard. As my friend Jimmy Gist would say “There is no landing so bad that it can’t be salvaged… or … He’s a little high but the good news is he’s plenty fast.”)



https://vimeo.com/219395959

Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass?

DeltaRomeo wrote:Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass?

You guessed it.

And this from yesterday running about 60 miles of beach.

Boy this last week either the air was raunchy or the weather rainy and low. Finally today I got some good air even if it was still overcast. Headed to the mountains but the air started to deteriorate so I turned and headed toward to beach. Found a new place to land among the rocks. Only about 100' long and in a turn but it is a little uphill right at the end. Touchdown spot is just over the dark grey rock under the plane in the back of the picture.

Today gave up some righteous air so I headed for the mountains to explore some new areas and struck gold.

Great to have Bob flying with me again. If there is a prettier waterfall to park in front of I haven't found it yet.

Cool photos Phil! That waterfall spot is pretty neat.

That composite prop is still doing OK on that rocky riverbed stuff, no chips / dents?

Battson wrote:Cool photos Phil! That waterfall spot is pretty neat.

That composite prop is still doing OK on that rocky riverbed stuff, no chips / dents?

The red tip prop is the loaner. I've flown it for probably 30 hours now and predictably the back of the prop is getting quite a few chips. Between the nickel leading edge and the hub there are a couple of chips through the gel coat. The nickel is holding up well with only one tiny dent.

This was essentially a new prop when loaned to me by my mechanic/prop dealer. Not anymore.

Barnstormer wrote:The red tip prop is the loaner. I've flown it for probably 30 hours now and predictably the back of the prop is getting quite a few chips. Between the nickel leading edge and the hub there are a couple of chips through the gel coat. The nickel is holding up well with only one tiny dent.

This was essentially a new prop when loaned to me by my mechanic/prop dealer. Not anymore.

So those minor chips you basically backfill with resin only? Is that right?

Then, and serious cuts into the underlying fibre can be repaired with a resin and fibre repair (if any). I've watched videos on how to do that on Youtube, it looks easy to do yourself.