My 3rd transport of the family plane from AZ to OR or OR to AZ on Thursday. Started out flying commercial to PHX on Wed morning and expected to leave that afternoon to beat the bad weather coming in late Thur and Fri. Winds just got too strong in Casa Grande so I waited until Thur right before day light. Headed direct to Lancaster area with a stop in Bakersfield, then Red Bluff and on up to Mulino. No issues, quite enjoyable flight with some nice tail winds up through CA so total flight time was 10.5 hrs and total travel time was 12.5 hrs. All the planning worked out as planned. Almost a perfect day!! Touched down at home and another 170 landed right behind me. Wish all my cross countries were this good! But have to admit I hit the 1 day window between storms and a spring snow storm coming for the west.

Since whoever is reading this thread likes to discuss flying, if you are ever in southern Idaho (Twin Falls) during a weekend you are welcome to come to our monthly formal or every weekend in-formal aviation breakfast & coffee. Check eaa820.org for details to come to our monthly meeting the 3rd Saturday at 1000, normally at the Twin Falls Airport restaurant. (EAA and non-EAA welcome) For information call Erik at 208-731-1009 or visit our website. Every sunday morning a bunch of us meet to talk flying at different Twin Falls cafes at 0900. Call Doug at 208-324-0011 for info. If it has to do with aviation, we will be discussing it. If anyone is flying through our area and needs assistance of any kind (repair, place to stay, information) you can land at Twin Falls, Jerome or Buhl and call one of us. We are always willing to help fellow pilots day or night. N7JHS - N20890

Aitkin:

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Redux:

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The reason the Cub at the end of the Aitkin video (2 posts above) takes so long to get off the snow is:

1. Sticky Snow
2. Heavy Fluidyne Wheel Skis and 150 hp
3. How long will it take given these conditions and full flaps deployed? (later did it with 1 notch of flaps and it jumped off like normal)

Well not where! But yes in the air. Someone elses dime.

Did right at an hour just checking out the local country. Saw I nice little heard of Elk 10 to 15 in all

Had to dodge a few snow showers and deal with gusty winds on landing. Makes some interesting flying though.

C ya, Bub

We had great weather on Sat and went snowmachining up on the pass. I was great again on Sun so decided to take my bride to Junea for a movie. We had chineese food and watched a kung-fu flik, total cost for food, gas, tickets etc probably $150 bucks or so. Maybe not so smart but a good time anyway.

Shane

On Thursday of last week I flew from Chandler, AZ Stellar Airpark (P-19) to Douglas International (KDGL) in An-2 N87AN with Alaskan owners Douglas Fulton and Neal Oppen. Had 1.5 hours flying right seat. Not quite like flying in the mountains but had a lot of fun anyway. While the left side has American instruments, the right side still has an altimeter that reads in meters and the airspeed indicator reads in Kilometers/hour. This aircraft will be appearing in the new movie Indiana Jones - Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, with Hollywood tail number N48550. and the name of "Panagra" painted on its side. Panagra was a joint airline that used to be owned by Pan Am and Grace Airways. The tail number is actually assigned to a Grumman G21A. The An-2 was still painted like it was done for the movie. The August 2007 issue of Air and Space had a photo of this plane with its normal Lithuanian Airlines paint job in the article about the Burning Man. In the past five years, I have flown in the airplane around Alaska, in Guatemala and El Salvador, and then on a trip from Houston to Phoenix. Last year I saw it at the Casa Grande airshow, but did not fly it.

Matt, we really need some photos of that.

I will try and have some photos posted tonight to a friend's web site and when they are posted I will let people know. Matt

Hi Matt,

I met Douglas at Blythe last year. Looked for him again this year, thinking he might have been a snowbird, but never saw him. The inside of that bird would make a VW microbus jealous . Sure looked like a cool way to travel abroad though. It was astonishing how slow that bird took off and landed! Excuse the crumby quality, this pic is from a beat up phone camera.

Take care Rob

matt,
Do you still have a stinson? my old stinson 108-2 is in Hitchcock & I'm located up the street from you in LaPorte w/ my maule m5-235

skip kingsbury

Hi there buddy!!! I have been hoping you would show up here. This is a great site to chat abuot the things we like to chat about.

Welcome.

Hi Shane and Skip and Rob,

Good hearing from all of you. Thanks, Shane, hope to be more active on this site. I read it often, and enjoy your posts. Say hello to Janice (sp?). Skip, I still have the Stinson, in fact I'm trying to get a hangar at LaPorte. Give me a call tomorrow 281 635-3825 cell. Rob, Douglas doesn't keep the plane anymore at Blythe. He is now keeping it at Douglas International - Matt

I'm still working on getting some pictures inserted.

Hey, I think I finally made it as far as a teenager in the 1980s when it comes to working some of these computer machines. It looks like I might have been successful uploading 7 photos of the An-2, according to the message I received. They are in the Misc - All category.

About 10 years ago, there was a european guy who hung out at my airport for a while who had bought an AN-2. he picked it up in Poland and flew it (along with a commercial pilot) across the north Atlantic to get it here. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to ride in it but it seemed pretty cool. He wanted to work it commercially but couldn't in the US due to the experimental registration. He ended up taking it down to South America somewhere with the idea of doing some freighting up into the mountains there, but it never did happen there either. I think he ran outa money & went home, that Antonov might be down there yet.

Eric

Powder Snow (finally...)


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Fishing on Crane lake


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Eat at the Green Mill in Bemidji on New Years Day - Really it's not THAT exciting...

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Today I got to fly my M7 with a 747 Captain and FO in the plane. Makes a guy try real hard to land good.



Flight time. 1 hour Landings 2 on grass 2 on pavement.