courierguy wrote:A 3 hr. out and return to Bear Lake with lots of mountain landings though no beach landings. The water masters have seen fit to let the lake level rise (after the tourist season) and ALL the beaches were inundated, not only that they were under water. Still a pretty flight circumnavigating that Carribean blue high mountain inshore sea. The autumn colors on the surrounding hillsides didn't hurt either.

Were you able to get any pics? I think this time of year would be awesome to fly over that area.

No pics of the Bear Lake flight, I was too bummed out there was no beach!!

Next day, I flew to a solar job outside of Kilgore Idaho, a 1+ hour flight v. a 2.5 hr drive! A very tricky landing though, the 1/4 mile long wide and smooth horse pasture is normally a piece of cake, but this time the horses had decided to make it more of a challange. I got lucky and managed to avoid any of their land mines.

Halfway there I got a call for crane service, thanks to the airplane I was able to continue to Kilgore, get that job done, then still make it back to Poky in time to do the crane job. As if I need another reason to fly! Amazing how even the slow cruise of a LSA type bird is SO much better then driving.

Now that the studying is over for a bit, its back to big tire flying! Updated my blog today (www.bigtirepilot.com) with some photos from today. Felt good to put the big wheels back on! Went out to a couple fun spots. Fall is in the air! Leaves are turning colors... Also found that one of my favorite spots has a family of owls living inside. Pretty cool to watch them. They are a mysterious creature...






AKT

Flew to prosser (S40). Off to little goose for the weekend 16W

Flew to Mountain Matt's today for breakfast & fun..beautiful warm fall day.

Camped out at 8700' 3 miles from my place and 3300' higher. There is just enough tree shelter on this ridge top to pitch a tent and more importantly tie off to as the shale rock surface was really iffy for the tie downs and the narrow ridge top doesn't leave a lot of room leftover. I used two on the tail and the trees on the wings. Of course the wind came up at 2:00 AM, no problem though! Great view of the Tetons to the east, 85 miles away, and pretty much every direction. The next morning a little burst of power to get to the edge and then a engine off glide all the way home with a restart to idle just in case I needed it on short final. Total flight time 4.5 minutes! And.... a short vid of the landing site:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va-DtQn64Xg

Since flying down to Patrol Guy's this weekend was a bust I explored Michigan's west coast with my Dad and a Friend of mine. I must say MBL has an awesome FBO. Photos soon.

Courier Guy...

That first pic is just awesome. Very cool. What's the trick to taking great shots like that? My try at that kind of pic sucks...

Just got back this afternoon from the Ran's fly in at Hays. Good turn out...great people...

Tom

Flew to Voyager Village (9WN2) with my GF & 2 friends today for lunch. Only about 10nm from our home strip, so we took a short detour north to my hunting land first that my friend & his wife bow hunt on. Gave him a new perspective of the 550 acres he's walked over for years. Voyager is the only golf course I know of that you can land on without an inflight emergency. Great meal there & talked with some other pilots there for golf & some just to eat. Then took off for a fall colors tour, some cranberry marshes mid-harvest & over the pond we duck hunted this morning. My friends hadn't flown before so they really enjoyed it.

If you like golf you might like this segment Flightline TV did on Voyager Village.

Well, Joey (AvidFlyer) and I didn't make it to Gravelly Valley this weekend due to low ceilings in the area. Plus, if we did get in we'd likely be hanging around the lake until 5pm or so waiting for it to clear again... if it cleared again. So we changed the venue to Columbia (O22). Walked into town, had dinner at El Jardin, watched the sun set, watched Joey drink his beer, Joey watched me smoke my pipe. Life was good for an evening.









Showed Joey the death star trench...


Joey got some more great pics. I stole the above photo from him.

Tom S-7S wrote:Courier Guy...

That first pic is just awesome. Very cool. What's the trick to taking great shots like that? My try at that kind of pic sucks...

Just got back this afternoon from the Ran's fly in at Hays. Good turn out...great people...

Tom

No trick! I just leave the camera on auto, ( where it's been since I bought it, a Nikon D60, it's lots smarter then me), and then take lots of pictures and choose the best. I had a few earlier and later of this sunset, but that one made the cut. I figure with digital pics what the heck, take lots and edit them when I get home. Hard to remember back to the film days! Yeah the Rans company is the best!

The Trench: that looks like fun... there is an abandoned phosphate mine that is just a big rectangular slot in the ground on the way to my Afton breakfast run I've been eyeballing. I'm always 8K+ as a couple of big ridges are still in the way between me and the cafe, but sometime I plan to go there just to eyeball it up close. It appears to be a few hundred feet deep, maybe a 1/4 mile long and 500' wide or so. The early morning sun angle always has the bottom in shadow when I go over so it's real mysterious looking. Another place on my bucket list is a spillway for a failed/out of service dam. Plenty long, wide enough, and a smooth concrete floor!

The wind, since I made my ridge top camp out, has not stopped (my grid tied wind turbine makes a dandy wind recorder, I can eyeball how much power it has made on the digital display in a certain period and directly relate that to flying conditions, especially for so close of a site) so that makes that flight especially rewarding. Plus, any day it will get snow up there and as it is too tight for ski ops I would have been bugged all winter I didn't go for it when I did, now I can enjoy that smug feeling of having nailed it

Figured out how to embed these....Thanks Matt!

















I have others and you can see them under my username! I had a wonderful time flying into these airstrips, camping at some. I got to stay at the Silver Spur lodge since my Dad knows the owners. They are awesome and I look foward to going next year and visiting during the fly inn. Happy flying everyone!

Old house hunting today


The simple life.


Not a cool as courierguy's photos parked near cabins, but the best I could do.
Dale

Flew around South/central Utah the other day. Hidden Splendor, Mexican Mountain, Cedar Mountain and Huntington. We were out looking to see if there were still any good fall colors, and there were some but not too many. Although I was surprised at how many aspens up high have not changed at all yet.

Landing Hidden Splendor to the North:


Hidden Splendor


Mexican Mountian - starting to get a little overgrown again. Nothing major, just lots of little weeds from all the water we had this year:


Cedar Mountain, looking over the south edge of the airstrip


Some fall colors -

I had to make a quick trip to check out my vacation castle near Afton Wyoming, everything looked OK. Coming back to my primary residence, I got a good view up at my ridgetop campsite of two weeks ago, it has been snow covered ever since, timing is everything!

Mush and I found a nice little field among the cottonwood colors.



Nice day to fly.

Here is where I flew last thursday:

Excellent video, very pretty place to fly

Friday I picked up a ride to Lake Havasu in a 210. A nice quick flight and some great scenery. Picked up the worlds ugliest, greasiest Cessna 150 and flew it home. May not be much but I'm flying again!

Jaerl wrote:Friday I picked up a ride to Lake Havasu in a 210. A nice quick flight and some great scenery. Picked up the worlds ugliest, greasiest Cessna 150 and flew it home. May not be much but I'm flying again!

Pics???