Alaska WOW !!!

[Forrest Barber]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

At least I can dream of all this with the great stories; I almost made it delivering a F-19 to Reeve ; but they sent a young fellow down to pick her up here in Alliance, I flew ith him and just shook my head along with Dorothy as he departed Barber for Alaska. He ran it off the runway in the Dakota's somewhere....

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Far be it for me to tell you what to do. but I'm going to do it anyway !

Forrest (and everyone else) you owe it to yourself to go there at least once. It really is THAT beautiful and there really is THAT much private aviation and there really are THAT many light taildraggers in every nook and cranny.

I'm gonna try to attach some photos here if I can figure it out... and I'll "edit" the post with captions in a moment...

First photo is the tiedowns at Lake Hood airstrip. This represents less than 1% of the light tailwwheel airplanes at that airport... more like half a percent!
Second photo is Steve Long's F-21 after we landed at Talkeetna for lunch.
Third photo is DeHavilland Beaver, and DeHavilland Otter with turbine conversion and STOL kit. Flying climbers up to Denali for a living.
Fourth picture is your garden variety stupid tourist on the first trip to Alaska, still in shock from the airplanes and the scenery.
Fifth picture is a droop leading edge STOL kit upgrade on a DH Otter, which is a serious bushplane but it ain't no Super Cub.
Sixth picture is flying in Don DeVoe's Pa-14 at about 20 feet AGL down the Susitna River, just before we landed on his Bushwheels in that fist sized gravel. Note million dollar log home above river. This must be the most beautiful front yard in the history of home ownership!

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Photos #2

1) More flying in the PA-14 down the Susitna River.
2) and 3) Well, you see, there's this itty bitty C-46 that flies almost every day, because this is the airplane that brings the fuel to all the remote places for the Super Cubs, T-crafts and 180's...
4) A nice L-2 on display at the Alaska Airmen's trade show.
5) Now I've seen everything. A fabric covered bushplane with an airliner instrument panel !
6) Oh yes, silly me, I almost forgot... here's another half a percent of the light airplanes parked at Lake Hood.

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Photos #3

1) Yawn. Just another photo of a place with 2000 flying taildraggers and incredibly majestic mountains within ten minutes' flying... why did I even bother turning on the camera?
2) Honey, remember how you said that the back half of the truck was rusted and dented, and that I should do something useful with it? Well honey, I cut the truck in half and welded some stuff together so I could take the floatplane and put it in the water.
3) Bob, I'm going to lunch. Change the engine on that Beaver while I'm gone, but have it done by the time the ice melts on the floatplane lake, so we can put it on the floats right over there next to it and fly it from the little dock right next to the office here.
4) Tommy if I catch you trying to rig up a remote trigger pull for that wing-mounted rifle case again, you won't be able to fly the Cub to school anymore! I don't care how many rabbits or coyotes you see out there, you're supposed to be doing your homework while you're flying, not plinking!
5) AK Brew's T-craft in front of Wolf Lake Air Services, home of our own forum member wlas .
6) So no sooner do we take off from Wolf Lake, and there's this little hill that keeps getting in our way that we have to look at for minutes at a time. Jeez, the inconvenience of it!

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Photos #4

1) The Knik River, between the glacier of the same name and the arm of the Cook Inlet by the same name. The dark gravel/tundra next to the river is a favorite landing spot called "The Picnic Table"
2) The Knik glacier and Chugach mountains in the background. Have you ever seen such drab landscape that people are forced to endure while flying?
3), 4) and 5) So I says to the guy I'm flying with... is there anywhere around here to get some crushed ice for my Martini? He says "Sure, right down there..." Those chunks are each about the size of a big rig diesel truck.
6) So then I says to the guy, "Hey I'm from Hollywood and where I come from everybody's got a nice clear blue swimming pool in their backyard... where's yours?" And the guy says to me "Right over there, pal, jump right in!" Sunlight ice melt pools on the lower Knik Glacier ice field.
7) Granite mountains rising out of the Knik River Gorge.
8), 9), 10) and 11) Flying through the Knik Gorge, about 100-150 feet AGL. Folks, the $5 million chase scenes in a $100 million James Bond movie have nothing on this piece of scenery!
12) AK Brew (in front of his trusty T-craft at the Picnic Table), my gracious host and tour guide for the most spectacular scenic flight I've ever had in 35 years of flying. Thanks Jim, you're a Saint!

[AKbrew]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Bill, GREAT job with those pictures and captions! Very enjoyable seeing it all through your eyes. The floats go on in about 2 weeks...C'mon back for an encore!

[Craig]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Thanks for sharing the pictures Bill

Couldn't agree more that Alaska has to be the most beautiful diverse landscape in the world!!!

Craig

[Rick Hadley]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Bill, as a contemporary of your father's used to say.."Now cut that out!.." I already feel bad enough about not being able to get up there!

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Bill, as a contemporary of your father's used to say.."Now cut that out!.." I already feel bad enough about not being able to get up there!

Hah, I remember that very well. Many people don't know this, but Jack Benny was just about the nicest and most generous guy in the world, and a concert-capable violinist... all in stark contrast to his onstage persona and antics.

Anyway, for whatever my opinion is worth going to Alaska should be something every pilot does at least once. And not just "someday before I croak", but soon enough to actually go do it.

Most of us soft, spoiled Lower 48 types may not have the guts to stick out the winters up there. So be a summer resident, or a yearly springtime time-share cabin owner, etc. If my situation ever allows it, I'd do that in a heartbeat.

I have more photos to put up as soon as I have time to do it.

Bill

[AKbrew]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

All are welcome anytime...plenty of room here. We just had 'Flyer1' Mike Hustak cruise through and get the "Knik Glacier followed by a beer at Piper's" treatment. We should be hearing from him soon! C'mon up guys (and gals...i.e. Taylormaid

[akndrifter]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Looks like a great trip, just by looking at the pictures! If anyone just happens to be in the Bristol Bay area, let me know!

[Len Petterson]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Bill you got me in trouble: # 1 on my Bucket list has been a trip to Alaska and Yukon.
Now it has moved up level 1A or: Get of your butt and get get it dune!
Dick, I do remember the tomatos!
I may have to sell the Taylorcraft to make the trip.

[flyer1]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Bill, looks like we just missed each other in ANC. Dick Smith put me in touch with Jim Brewer. Thanks Dick. Jim is a fantastic guy. Jim took me on the Knik Glacier tour and we landed at "The Picnic Table". That was my first landing on an "unimproved" strip. Very exciting. The flight over the glacier and the blue water pools were breath taking. I would post pictures but, Bills pictures are much better than mine. Jim gave me a piece of glacier ice to try. It is amazing to me that I had a chunk of ice that was millions of years old. Bill also showed me moose spore. Kinda reminded me of large rabbit pellets. I thought it would be more like horse apples. (the new things we learn) The trip out of and back into Lake Hood was really interesting, a lot more traffic than I expected. And the planes at Lake Hood were great. I could have spent a couple of days just wondering around the airport. We also got to fly over the Eagle Creek Airpark. I think that is the correct name. Looked like a great place to live. After the flight Jim took me to Gwinnies. The king crab was very,very good. Jim, Thank you very much for the unforgettable flight. That trip rates right along with first solos. After being in AK and seeing how the folks up there use their planes, I think I want to to get a seaplane rating, put big tires on my Tcraft and find some skis. Alaska is a pilot's dream. Maybe I could talk my wife into moving????

Mike Hustak

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

Fairbanks resident and forum member AKJack informed me with absolute authority that 8 months out of the year Alaska is the most beautiful place in the world, and the other four months nearly cancels it out!

The weather up there is not for the faint of heart. You could tell that even by being there in the super-mild springtime weather. flyer1, you and I got to experience flying in that beautiful weather and live in a picture-postcard for an instant - thanks to Jim Brewer. I'd be hard-pressed to stick it out in January when it's a big deal just to drive to the grocery store. It boggles the mind to imagine the tough people who choose to live "out in the country" where there is no grocery store and no road to get there regardless.

As mentioned, a summer time-share or dual residence makes a lot of sense to us soft spoiled types. There are reportedly a lot of folks who "snowbird" someplace else like Phoenix in October and then go back to AK in March or April.

[VictorBravo]

Re: Alaska WOW !!!

More Photos from my recent trip...

1) Jim's airplane at "The Picnic Table", with yet more boring and uninspiring scenery in the background.
2) The Picnic Table itself, visible in the snow patch in the foreground. Pay no attention to that majestic mountain in the background!
3) The T-craft sitting there just waiting to get back airborne. Looking north (I believe) out towards the Knik river and on towards Denali (not visible)
4) and 5) Hey Jim, I'll bet your little T-craft can scale tall glaciers in a single bound! Damn right, this is climbing up headed eastbound up over the upper Knik Glacier. The pure white saddle between the peaks is the top of the glacier, with Prince William Sound in the distance.
6) Snowfields near the top of Knik Glacier that have likely never been set foot on.