The weather window came together so I launched out of Baker Lake, Nunavut Territory, Canada, Thursday morning heading for the Maule Fly-In at Big Creek, Idaho. Landed at Stony Rapids around midday. All the fires around there almost burned the village two weeks ago. They are slowly recovering from a near-death experience. Gassed up and headed for Lloydminister, Saskatchewan. Then headed for Milk River, Alberta, but couldn't get the cotton-pickin' lights to come on, so doubled back to Lethbridge. 12.5 hours behind the yoke--1300 miles. Friday morning I made the Del Bonito/Whetstone Int'l airstrip on the 49th and continued down to Big Creek, landing around noon. Nice wind coming through the notch on short final. No problem, though rough. Another 400 miles. 1600 miles direct, but got beat out by the couple from New Jersey who came 1800 miles. Sunday I headed for Hamilton, gassed up, then retraced my route to the border. Cleared Customs and headed for Hanna, Alberta, to tag up with another flying buddy. Then to La Ronge, Saskatchewan, to see a canoeing buddy. Waited for the numerous CB's to pass in the north, then Thursday launched out of La Ronge at 0440 and hit Stony Rapids for breakfast after passing over my old trapper mentor's cabin at Russel Lake Narrows. Gassed up at Stony (C$1.41/litre) and headed for home (C$2.76/litre). About 32 hours altogether--about what I used to do commercially in a week. It's a lot more fun flying my poorman's helicopter than somebody else's 206B.

Finally got to go flying again. damn work sure interferes with a man's pleasure don't it.

Very short trip to Skagway to gather up 8 fishermen off the Princess cruise ship. As it was Sunday the fast boat had a poor schedule so I flew my wife over and we had breakfast at the Sweet tooth saloon,

beutiful weather on the flight over and then the wind came up, one sock pointed north and one south and the one in the middle just went around and around the pole, Just had to slow down and let it beat us around for a minute or two and were back in Haines.

getting close to moose spotting time in a few more weeks.

Shane

Good to meet you chopper206. Glad you came, any photos? I hope my flyways take me through Baker Lake one day.
Jeremy

Well I have had a couple of interesting flights over the past couple of days. First I went moose spotting and had a great flight, calm air, good visibility, and plenty of moose to look at. Didn't see any really big bulls but was enjoyable.

The next flight was as a passenger in a supercub, I was needed at work so my buddy George flew back into camp to get me. We made it about halfway out when that dreaded punkety punkety noise started. By using lots of carb heat and pumping the throttle he kept it going long enough to make the road.

He did a very good job of making a complete dead stick landing. We jumped out and pushed it off the road. It ended up that it had a fuel selector valve that was broken inside and although he had changed to his right tank and the selector said it was changed and the detents were clicking into place we ran out of gas on the left tank and came down.

We have some very nice moose hangin on the meat pole and it will take several trips with plane and airboat to get it all into town.

Cheers
Shane

Over to Glenns Ferry with my Thrush to put out seven loads of Rye grass in the wind. Yippee!

Just flew up to Santa Paula (SZP) and was pleasantly surprized to find fuel at $3.55 for 100LL. It hasn't been under $4 for awhile around here. And still $4.10 at Whp. Wild fires around still belching out the smoke.

No fires, a little bit of wind, few Salmon (or Moose) left & 100LL is $3.59

Nowhere yet at 6:30 a.m. but a planned 8:00 a.m. departure in the 205 for Coeur D'alene for the weekend. Potential Orofino stop to check the Steelhead scene. Not to long though, wife on board.
Looks as though it'll be a good weekend to fly in the intermountain NW. Hope some of you other guys get after it too. Be careful out there.
G-

Not today. A couple of weeks ago and hopefully again this Sunday. http://youtube.com/watch?v=VdWLwzb2G4Q

Flew to North Las Vegas (VGT) yesterday despite airmet up for mod turb below 15k. Departed O22 at 8:30 local. Heard a Centurion at Mammoth report mod chop at 12.5k and thought I was in for it. With the wife on board, I was looking at a good month of TV dinners and cold cereal. Climbed to 13.5 k and went through the pass with only occasional light chop. Woohoo, menu change avoided. Turned south east once past a hot Saline MOA and was seeing 165 knots on the GPS. About a 40 knot tailwind. (when was the last time you saw one of those?) Made it to VGT in 2:15 and filled up with 3.44/gal. 100LL.

Very Nice day !

Mark

Wes wrote:Not today. A couple of weeks ago and hopefully again this Sunday. http://youtube.com/watch?v=VdWLwzb2G4Q

Cool video. Kinda scary takeoff, and kinda scary in the end where you were hauling ass on the high speed taxiway. Was that sped up?

Three of us packed up the 185 for a short hop over the mountains to the West Coast of the South Island. Well, two of us packed. 2nd co-pilot recently had his first birthday, and thought the view out the window was pretty good; good enough in fact to give a running commentary most of the way over.

The flight involves a take off from around 1200ft, climbing to over 6000ft through the mountains, and then descending to sea level, for a flight leg of approximately 25 minutes.
Low tide over on the West Coast beach was at 18:15 this evening, so usually the beach is useable for landings two hours either side of low tide. However, following a couple of days of decent stormy weather, the swells were something to see, which made the usable beach a lot smaller, and damper, than you would expect with an hour to go from low tide.
As it happened, the sea breeze was mild, making for a straight forward approach. The plane got slightly damp feet on landing, but nothing a hose down on returning home won't fix.
A couple of pilots came by to inspect the arrivals, and in a few minutes we were off via quad bike and boat for a cuppa at their Hut. Newspaper duly delivered, and with a feed of Whitebait in recompense, we were delivered back to the plane.
Returning via a different pass 6500ft all the way home, looking at some impressive Spring avalanches along the route, then landing at home, just in time to tie down under the darkening sky.
Bring on Summer.

zane wrote:

Wes wrote:Not today. A couple of weeks ago and hopefully again this Sunday. http://youtube.com/watch?v=VdWLwzb2G4Q

Cool video. Kinda scary takeoff, and kinda scary in the end where you were hauling ass on the high speed taxiway. Was that sped up?

Yeah, I believe it was all sped up 400%. It definitely does take a while to get up in just about anything that flies there and the landings seem (and are) pretty fast when compared to the lower elevations. Come up and see for yourself sometime. You'll get a free certificate for your effort.

Went to CCR and back yesterday. The night landing at N86 was ugly. There are no reflectors on the sides of the runway so it's tough telling where you are. Those are not my tracks going off in the bushes
Last week I took MLB to Southern Utah. Rented a car in St. George and parked the plane in Hurricane. I left the parking brake on and when I came back a couple days later it was starting to get windy and I discovered I had no right brake. Bill Reid (who I'd just met) tried to scare up some 5606 or ATF but to no avail. After dicking around for a half hour, I tried it and had some brake so I launched for St.George, picked up MLB and we launched for Reno. The ride home was looooooong. Anyway, took the plane out to Nervino and rebuilt both master cylinders. New lock-o-seals and o-rings and man, I got brakes. They're almost too good.
Dave

Friday GNG to Coeur d'Alene was @3.0 due to getting turned around in the trench past New Meadows and returning to McCall for breakfast. Once we finished it had lifted plenty and we stroked right past Orofino and St. Maries with no problem.
Saturday was a five pax scenic tour - C.D'A. to Priest Lake USFS for a quick stop with one puking. Then up to upper Priest Lake and back down the east side over Cavanaugh Bay while a 182 and Citabria landed, then over to Sandpoint for a landing with two puking this time! Then back to C.D'A. for more refreshments. Yum!
Today was C.D'A. to GNG non stop no real wind either way b a bit of light chop occasionally mostly super vis. and heard many 180/185's going all over the place in the back country @ 2.5 total.
Even stopped to watch Brooks Beaver takeoff this morning.
Minus the puke - overall, sweet!

zipped into Red Creek last weekend for an overnighter... Arizona's hellish summer temps are finally starting to head out. The night stars were amazing and the morning temps were awesome.

Got an early wake up call when a c-180 snuck in from the canyon to the west and cracked the whip right over the tent.... Thanks Brian

Only thing that went awry was the small mouth fishing

Decided to try again this morning since the water and temps are getting better. Heard there was a Maule and c-180 in Red Creek camping, and the wind just plane didn't want to play right at that spot anyways ...

...so off to the Bannana strip a few miles north. It's pretty overgrown nowdays caught a few mesquites but nothing too big appearently nobodys been using this place lately...bummer it's closer to the water and more secluded than RC...a must for visitors( note to self: bring hedgers next week)

spied a c-140 ish.... circling the cub ( probably wondering what the heck I was doing there raised him on the radio, said he frequented this site (BCP.O).. maybe he took a pic? ... smallmouth still not cooperating ... lot's of channel and bulhead cats though ... and of course ... carp...

all in all a great way to spend the morning

leading edge and vg's done. wiring for strobes done (the hard part) and wingtips still off. Did not notice much else. Any word on 447G?
Dave

Took off after lunch and went North to Talkeetna with the #1 kid. Stopped for a soda and hike left there and headed West to a little gravel strip in the foot hills of Denali. Had a Mooney (!) try to visit us through the windshield. He never saw us, never deviated. We took a neg. G dive to avoid. Wound up over the Kahilitna glacier and home along the Susitna River. Home at 6pm both of us with ear to ear grins.

Fantabulous day here in the magic valley. Flew the Super Cub down to Twin Falls to drop my mom at Skywest for her return to New York. Landed a few freshly disked fields to check with some growers on the way home. No big whoop. Super nice day though.

Flew two loads of rye seed out of Gooding this morning in the Thrush. Another super sweet day here. I may have to go Cubin' later.