http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1216742471
I woke up at 6:48am to the sounds of a tractor. When I walked
outside I was surprised how bright it was.
Paul said, "In the summer the sun
rises at 3:30 in the morning but it doesn't set until around 11:00 at
night, it takes some getting use too."
I walked to the main cabin, and
there was a hot breakfast of bacon and eggs. As soon as I finished
Paul told me to come with him and help setup the heaters under the
Super Cub's engine, due to the cold the engine must be pre-heated
before starting, he told me in an hour or two they should be ready to
go. In that time, I was told to earn my keep. Paul showed me to the
tool shed and he said that some branches had fallen around the lodge
and I was to go around and cut them up to use for firewood. Its a hard
life in the back country, with no shortage of manual labor, as I would
find out in the coming weeks. After clearing and cutting up all the
branches, Paul asked me to give him a hand with unloading the
Beaver, the Alaskan version of the family van it can haul nearly a ton.
As we were walking over to the dock were the Beaver was tied up, I asked,
"How did you get all of this stuff out here?"
He answer was simple.
"With nearest road 300 miles away, everything was taken apart and flown in, even the tractor."
After unloading some building supplies, Paul said,
"If you want lunch your going to have to catch it."
We were going fishing. With the Cub's engine heated up, Paul got in
the rear seat of my Cub, while I flew.
He said, "The best way of learning is just going out there and
doing it, and after that weather you landed in yesterday, this should be
easy."
I hoped so.
As we climbed away from the lodge, Paul told me to turn right and
head south of the Chitna River. As we were flying along I was stunted
at the sights I was still use too the skyscrapers, traffic, and smog of
the city, here it was quite and peaceful.
Alaska is home to some of the worlds worst weather, but it was hard to
tell that on a day like today. I asked Paul if he landed on the side of
mountains like I'd heard pilots do in the books and movies.
He replied that he does and he would show me how, but not now.
"Look down he said, see that little river snaking along the ground if
we follow it south a bit farther we'll come to an island, and in the other side of the island is the landing strip."
In a short time I saw the island, but no landing strip,
Paul said, "See that little bit of rock sticking out?"
"Yeah", I replied.
"Well, thats it!" Paul said with a grin.
I couldn't believe what he wanted me to land on. It was just a little
piece of rock!
Paul said, "Take a deep breath it's not that hard just come
in nice and slow and you stop in 100ft."
I didn't think so, but I lowered the flaps and lined up for the landing.
It seemed that we were still going too fast. The rock was getting closer.
Paul said, "You can hit the brakes as soon as you hit the rock."
Just 10ft now, in a few seconds we
would be safe and dry, or swimming. The edge of the rock past
under the nose I flared for land and with a small bump the tires hit, my
feet firmly on the brakes, we stopped.
"Not too bad." said Paul, "About a 70 foot landing."
I couldn't believe that we had actually landed on the rock.
Soon we were fishing.
With fish in our belly's, I decide that this wasn't too bad, ok, it was
great. Now for the fun part, taking off this rock.
Paul said, "Just taxi to the far end, hold the brakes give it full power,
then just before the end drop full flaps and then we should jump off the
ground, or be very wet and cold."
I did as Paul said, held the brakes, full power, waited until the
end, full flaps, and what do you know it worked. Soon we were flying
between the mountains again.
Paul said, "The number one killer of pilots here, is getting to slow in a
turn and stalling. But another thing is if you want to look at some
thing between some mountains, you always start high and slowly get
lower, that way you can fly back out. If you start low and try to climb
out chances are the mountain is rising faster than you, and you'll run
into it. See that valley off to the left? A few years ago a low-time pilot
was flying in there and he got to low and was trying to out climb the
mountain, the mountain won."
"Ok", he said "Lets head back to the lodge but don't descend yet."
I was wondering what he had up his sleeve, but I found out soon
enough.
"Cut the engine.", said Paul.
I did, not knowing what he was about to say.
"Ok, this will be good practice for that time
your engine quites, crashes here are not a question if, its a question of
when. Now turn off the battery, we don't want to kill it, I forgot to turn
off the battery before and killed it." said Paul.
So I did.
"Now we are going to glide all the way back to the lodge, Super Cubs
have a 7:1 glide ratio, meaning for every foot we go down we go
forward seven feet, just like a hang glider. If you open the door you
can get more of the feeling." he said with a smile.
I pulled the handle and the door fell open, thinking to myself "If I
tried this back home I'd get locked up, cutting the engine for fun, its
brilliance."
Gliding down toward the lodge was probably the closest thing to flying
like a bird, no engine noise, just the wind. Coming down closer to the
runway,
Paul said, "You will have to use the flaps, but you'll need to put
them up and down because if we leave them down to long they will
stall us, but if we don't use them we'll be going to fast."
(For some reason the autogen trees didn't load for this shot so you'll have to pretend.)
http://www.simviation.com/yabbuploads/2008-7-22_22-30-32-375gl.jpg
With a few bumps we were back, pushing the Cub back to the parking
area,
Paul said, "Not as fun as your landing yesterday was it?"
Pt. 3
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1216923707
, I also wish that the text would go all the way across the screen but it just gets to a point and makes a new line. :-/
