Cabin Helper

I went to help some friends unload a DC3 at their cabin site near Lake Creek. There's a link to a news video in this story - you can see my plane in the background when the DC3 lands and takes off and a couple pictures of me - riding on the back of a 4 wheeler and moving lumber in a green shirt… When they say her engines start on her own terms, no kidding - it took them 3 hours to get one of them running. It was a lot of fun, but turned out to be a long, wet, cold day after everyone else split and my friend and I relocated seemingly most of the 7000+ pounds of stuff to get it under tarps. I flew home in the dark exhausted and woke up pretty sore :-)



This guy made a really impressive short landing.



My plane on the strip.


Airstrip view.


View from the cabin site.


Owners Cubs.



This tent has an electric bear fence around it.



Cool storage - this thing was only $200 at Costco and is really well made.


From the air.


Video I took of the DC3 takeoff.




Link to Channel 2 News story about the delivery.

Short Flights by Necessity

The only flights I have been able to do in my own plane lately are to and from Merrill field. I quit taking my plane to my instrument lessons for a while because I would occasionally be nauseous afterwards and not too enthused about flying mine home. And I got chewed out for a perfectly acceptable parking/tiedown job I did on my plane when all their tiedowns were full. But, I've gotten over the nausea and decided that after 25 years of Alaskan plane ownership they can kiss my ass if they think I don't know how to protect it from the wind, lol.

Lots of GPS tracks to and from Anchorage...


This day started out nice enough... Looking toward the Knik.


Heading up toward Birchwood.

But got a little worrisome at Eagle River...

My Instructor was on the radio talking to Approach and recognized me when I was telling them I was coming in from the East... so she said "Approach, it's wide open to the West we just came in that that way", which was cool of her. But I didn't want to go the long way around if I didn't HAVE to. And it would have made me late. :-)

I had to jog about a bit and drop through a hole, but came out lined up nicely in the rain if a bit low...

Heading home it had tightened up even more going East, so I headed over to Point MacKenzie and went home over the Susitna flats...


And it opened right up before I got home :-)