mikewings wrote:Wasn't quite today but flew up the Kennebec River on Monday to Gaddabout Gaddis field in Bingham just below the Wyman Dam. Walked up the road to breakfast


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Pretty country there.

Blu wrote:Just got back from Powel

My buddy had a house boat on the beach so wife and i flew down for a few days. Landed on the beach by the boat.

Anyway shot a little film with the go pro as i was landing and just playing around.

Stellar video Blu too short tho

Lake Powell is my favorite place to unwind...the 8th wonder of the world-

mikewings wrote:Wasn't quite today but flew up the Kennebec River on Monday to Gaddabout Gaddis field in Bingham just below the Wyman Dam. Walked up the road to breakfast


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Do you need prior permission to land there? last time i was there was at one of there fly-in's

Tom

Sunday my Daughter and I went to lunch:

That's quite the production all right.

Brava! Brava, Pokette!

CAVU

You spend waaaaaaayyy too much time watching movie trailers!

Alex wrote:Up in Seattle for a few days. Thought I'd check out the local area.

Bridal Veil falls and Mt Index? Nice shots. Most beautiful country in the world, in my opinion.

Messed around in the Cascades today finally ticked off every public airport west of the Cascades in Oregon. Shot some video, figured I'd share, since I don't really know any pilots I have no one to show my videos to

Enjoy!

A spur of the moment local evening flight, taking advantage of some good smooth ridge lift and some late afternoon thermals. Takeoff down my hillside runway only needed 1680 prop RPM (I've done the math for the Rotax's 2.43 to 1 reduction gear) a few minutes later I reached max altitude of 9600' and throttled back to 1230 rpm, where it would stay for the next 45 minutes. Not near strong enough for dead sticking it, I played around on the ridge and then got back to business, an 8 mile flight into town into the wind and away from the lift/ridgeline to check out tomorrow mornings crane job, took a picture to give the homeowner, and also overflew another jobsite for later next week. I'm not playing around here, this is work... After the pictures were taken, (giving me a real heads up when I showup tomorrow, I'll already know where the trusses are, my set up area, obstructions etc. etc.) I was down to 5,000', but now near another ridgeline that I was able to slide over to and then work back up to 7500', still at 1230 rpm. I had company now, a couple of hang glider pilots, who I know, one an emergency room physican and the other a nuke puke (site engineer for Westinghouse I think, a bus rider, inside SE Idaho joke)! Both major players in the HG world.

Now I was on the honor system, no hitting the throttle to get above them! After a half hour we had both gained and lost some, but they were unable to increase their initial height above me, relative to me, typical friendly soaring competition. I showed them where some thermals were and vice versa. The big difference was that when I turned downwind and minutes later landed back at home, the plane was in the hangar and a cold beer was cracked in less then 5 minutes. They had to do the hang glider shuffle, to get the rig off the mountain top, they probably got home around 3 hours later then me AND used more gas! 1 hour total time, and I think I landed with more gas then I took off with, almost.

I had an outrageously fun weekend of flying. Three totally different experiences so, at risk of being obnoxious, I'm going to break them into three different posts.

First was a flight past a power plant and coal mine in southwestern Wyoming. They discovered the coal seam, built the power plant next to it in the 70s, then played out all of the coal that could be mined from the surface. The coal mine continues underground (and probably will for the next 100 years), but they are now in the process of reclaiming the above ground mine.

Here's a picture of the spoil piles next to the excavated seam.



Here's a picture of the seam itself, which runs for miles and miles.



Here's a picture of the huge excavators they are using to do the reclamation. The "little" tractor behind the excavator is an enormous Cat loader.



Here's a picture of some of the partially reclaimed parts of the seam. That's a big hole to fill in!



Finally, when I couldn't stand it any longer, I had to fly down into the old coal seam. You can still see ribbons of coal in the walls. Very cool experience--may have to go back and make a video!

Next, I took a old local rancher, and good friend, back to some of his old stomping grounds in southwestern Wyoming, where he used to try to make a living running horses. In the course of a morning, he showed me a medicine wheel on a high desert mesa, a box canyon which formed a natural corral they used to use to trap horses with, and an old hideout that Butch Cassidy used to use. In addition, I got to fly over some incredible rock formations in the Adobe Town area.

This is the mesa with the medicine wheel on top.



Here is the medicine wheel. (I also heard a rumor that the Boy Scouts put this up as a navigational aid to pilots sometime back in the 20s or so, but don't know which story is true. Dude, the old rancher, had never heard of the Boy Scout story, and told me all the really old timers referred to it as the medicine wheel)



Here is the natural corral--formed by the box canyon on the left. If you look close, you can see the old fence they built so they could swing the gate shut once the horses ran up the box canyon.



Here is the Butch Cassidy hideout. Hard to see, even from the air, but walls and roof are still standing. (1/4 of the way up the photo, just to the right of center).



Finally, the scenery was incredible.







More pictures here, if anyone is interested: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 5b90533e06

Last, but not least, I took my brother in law flying this morning to scout a route up Temple Peak, which he plans to climb in a few weeks. Beautiful morning to fly, and my PA-12 chugged right up to 14,500 without any problem. Still climbing 300 fpm when we hit a cloud layer at 14.5 and had to stop.

A few pictures of the Wind River range today:










I'm probably pushing my luck already by posting all of this stuff, but here are more photos from this flight if anyone is interested:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150878933827968.414770.781222967&type=3&l=40afc200b5

Ranch Pilot, you just keep posting......I enjoyed all of it, Thanks

Thanks, Bighorn. Glad you enjoyed.

Here's a video I made of my flight to Adobe Town.

RanchPilot wrote:....
Here is the medicine wheel. (I also heard a rumor that the Boy Scouts put this up as a navigational aid to pilots sometime back in the 20s or so, but don't know which story is true. Dude, the old rancher, had never heard of the Boy Scout story, and told me all the really old timers referred to it as the medicine wheel)

Is that cross superimposed on the medicine wheel aligned north/south (either true or magnetic)? That wouldn't necesarily mean that the boy scout story is true, but it might make it seem more likely. I suppose that if it is a native american medicine wheel from way back, it could have been laid out based on the north star or something.

It is aligned North/South, but my (limited) understanding is that medicine wheels are oriented in that fashion as well.

Whoever put it up there, they went through a lot of work to get it there, not many people know about it, and it has been there a long time. Between that and the Butch Cassidy hideout, I felt like I was stepping back in time. It was really neat to have an old-time rancher in the back seat with me who has forgotten more about that country than I'll ever learn.

Ranch Pilot: the Wind River Range, one bad ass set of mountains! The last time I went to Lander I took the lowest way through, and it was still 10K+. Great pictures!

I flew to breakfast about 70 miles away, and landed on a few 8k+ ridge lines on the way, just a typical Sunday morning breakfast flight, ho-hum.

Ranch pilot

Very nice video......

It is the highlight of my day to come home and watch a video or review someones flying pics........so many places to see so many people to meet....I know I will never see them all as Father Time is ticking away.....thanks Everyone for sharing, very nice.

Not really all that backcountry or anything... but it is where I flew today, and I thought the video turned out semi cool.



Cool video RanchPilot, if only I had terrain like that here to fly around.