Having decided to wait until the weather had cleared before taking my first flight in the D18 (in reality, 'real world weather' had killed my FPS & was making landing nearly impossible at 5fps). I waited, & waited, busying myself with getting acquainted with the D18 & the location of various controls. I took some time out to chat to some of the older guys at Ketchikan, some of them had either flown or had been flown in D18's during their time in the services.
Eventually, the weather cleared & the storm we had been promised, failed to materialise. I stepped out of the office into the cold, crisp Alaskan air. To meet my new toy:
Stepping up into the D18 & making my way up to the cockpit again, only this time I was both nervous & excited. After all, the next time I would step out of the B18 I would be at BFU North:
After running through the pre-flight checks, I was just about to jump back out & say a few thank-you's & farewells to the old boys at Ketchikan. What I found, however, were three old men - begging me to take them for a ride in a plane that neither of them had been up in for years - how could I say no??
So without much of a delay there were four of us heading back to BFU North instead of just one. I had told the guys to grab a few things together, just incase we couldn't get back out of BFU North later due to any bad weather that may come our way. This was partly a little white lie, intended to get the old boys out of my way long enough for me to radio BFU North & inform them that we would be having three 'guests of honour' at the 'D18 Party' tonight:
After making a few re-calculations for fuel, I decided to put a little extra in so that I could take the guys sightseeing. Making our way straight passed BFU North (& laughing at them), we made our way down the passage leading to Foxcamp. The guys loved the sightseeing & I loved doing a flypast at Foxcamp, gloating to the campers there as they gazed at my new 'ride':
After some fun we made our way back to BFU North. We were running short of time, I had to get the 'star of the show' & my new 'guests of honour' back in time for the party. Setting her down right at the start of the strip, a little to early to be honest. Luckily the ground just before the strip was still hard enough to take the weight:
Parking the D18 up, all I had left to do was show my new friends to the bar & invite them to join our party tonight - food, drink, festivities & log cabins to spend the night in would all be provided free of charge by BFU, including another sightseeing trip back to Ketchikan tomorrow - all they had to was accept:
The old guys were very quick to accept our offer - but they were even quicker to get stuck into the Moosehead Beer!!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers,
TSC.
Bar by Mees
And the axtra story is fun! ;)
