Help Alaska buddies

[TurboS7]

I just saw a post where a guy is bored flying a C-206. Obviously he does not appreciate what it can do. Could you guys enlighten him a little bit, I have so much bs on this board that he'll just run and get the shovel if I try and tell the what a real man can do with a 206. While your at it tell the boys about the competition at GKN every year, I am sure none of them know about that.

 

[Ted Striker]

Bored???

Man, I am from AK born and raised. If ANYONE is bored flying an airplane up there, they are not too far from an accident. Bar none, the most dynamic situations exist up there. From weather, terrain, on and on and on..... If he is bored, he probably is missing something.

The competition in Gulkana is pretty incredible. Short field takeoffs in a supercub in less than 150'. The 206 is a true bush workhorse. I have seen them with antlers and everything else strapped to the outside and off they go. I sometimes wonder if I wouldn't be just as happy back up there doing something like that. Talk about boring, try flying an RJ from DFW-SAV-DFW 4 days a week. That gets boring, not AK bush flying.

 

[GuppyPuppy]

AMEN, brother!

That's why I'm on LOA and back up here having some fun!!!

Cheers!

GP

Purple is a fruit!

 

[TurboS7]

Things are always slow where I work in the summer so I have always thought the great thing would be to take a LOA and go fly in AK for the summer. I just need to "renew" my contacts up there, I have about 1000 hours of AK flying and 9000 hours of piston time from DC-3's,BE-18's, 185's, 206's, 207's,Aztec's, PA31's,402's and the like. I don't have a lot of float time just about 30 hours of pidiling around myself. Maybe next year....

 

[Twotter76]

Yeah its too bad they stopped the competition at GKN a few years ago. I was a distance judge one year when we watched a heavily modified cub get off the ground in 32 feet. More impressive was when he came back around and landed it in 57. That show was a lot of fun.

 

[TurboS7]

Was that Duane King? I know that he held the record for a while.

 

[Ted Striker]

See I was thinking it was considerably less than 100', but couldn't remember for sure and didn't want to get beat up if I was wrong. Unbelievable.

I know a guy who was moose hunting and had flown in. They hung the meat way up in a tree at their camp, so the bears couldn't get it. The tree happened to be near their Supercub. A griz wandered into camp at night and being frustrated about not getting the meat, beat up the plane a bit. They had to fix the fabric with ducttape and fly it out. No sweat. Definitely a "can do" state!!

 

[TurboS7]

There were some guys from the lower 48 who had a set-net permit for the Cinder River by Pilot Point. I flew them out to the set and landed on about a 350 foot part of the beach. After they got camp set up a she bear came along in the morning and totally trashed it. I flew out and picked them up and flew them to King Salmon so they could get fresh supplies. I flew them back and again the same she bear trashed the camp again. This time I flew them to Pilot Point as they were ready to give up. One night over some beer they mentioned the problem to one of the "chiefs". He said just move the camp to a diffrent place, the bear just doesn't like where you have put it. So I flew them back and they put up camp about 50 yards away. The next morning she came by looked at the camp and just passed on. She just didn't like the camp being too close to where she took her morning walk...

 

[Twotter76]

Yeah I think it was King but im not 100% on that. Was probably 8 years ago or so. I also recall seeing two prop strikes on the same day and one almost-ground loop. I miss that airshow.