Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Friendliest aviation Ccmmunity on the web
  • Modern site for PC's, Phones, Tablets - no 3rd party apps required
  • Ask questions, help others, promote aviation
  • Share the passion for aviation
  • Invite everyone to Flightinfo.com and let's have fun

Your best flight

Welcome to Flightinfo.com

  • Register now and join the discussion
  • Modern secure site, no 3rd party apps required
  • Invite your friends
  • Share the passion of aviation
  • Friendliest aviation community on the web
I flew the Mu2 up to Alaska two summers ago from Ft. Lauderdale Executive...Spent the night at Boeing Field in Seattle, then went up to Juneau (take a look at that LDA rwy8 approach)...there's about 5 or 6 step downs and the airport is completely surrounded by mountains...next we flew up to Homer and did a DME arc to the Localizer for RWY 21, that one was easy in comparison to Juneau. we then flew to Sildovia and then up to Anchorage just fishing on the way at different places. on the return we flew from Anchorage to Sitka (nice little town built by the Russians)...flew the LDA rwy 11 there right down to the minimums of 400-1 (if I remember correctly)...the one thing that stands out in my mind about that approach was the moderate to severe icing we encountered along with the 6 step downs, but I guess that is normal for Alaska. From Sitka we flew to Boise, ID and the rest is history.

The radar service is very limited up there at the lower altitudes...always hearing from Anchorage Center "Cleared for the approach cancel with Flight Service on the ground" unless you are going to Anchorage.

Most of my the time we got cleared GPS direct and we were up in the flight levels.

Another thing I noticed was that it seemed like the weather could change on a dime and was hard for Flight Service to predict accurately (F.S. was predicting Sitka to be VFR, but when we got there it was solid IFR)

Other than that I thought Alaska was a very beautiful place and I can't wait to go back up there. I have only been up there once, but I thought it was a very valuable learning experience as it is very different from flying around the North East.

If you want to see a wacky NDB approach, look at Nassasaraq, Greenland...it looks like it has the potential to get nasty
 
Thanks Mu2!

I fear that attempting Alaska in a 182 from Chicago might be a little too much for me. I know it can be done though, there is a guy out of Wisconsin that does it rountinely as part of instrument training that he provides but you have to use HIS 182 and the costs are prohibitive.

Rush, you're right, the diving there is great! The best diving I ever did was in the ABC's, especially Bonair. That's why I thought the Bahamas Sucked for diving.

Hey AVbug, what's ya doing this summer? :D

Asquared, do you still instruct? I am willing to pay 50/hr for a guy who's been there, seen it and done it. I don't need instruction on flying x-country IMC but would like to fly with someone who has seen it all. I would never attemt this trip without serious mountain time and major work on obscure approaches partial panel.


Supsup,

Thanks for the link, I got that off this sight about a month ago, it's pretty cool. In fact, that's one of the reasons I want to go to Alaska.


Anybody else accomplish any major trips to Alaska?
 
TDTURBO,

Alaska in a 182 must not be too impossible. Two guys in our pilots flew from Virginia to Alaska a couple years ago and returned safely. One was a student pilot and the other seldom leaves the pattern. They had a great time and still tell the story about having to sleep one night in a room above a tavern with only one bed. I wondered about those two.

I am a hot-looking early thirties woman with my own headset but I regret that I will be unable to improve the scenery in your Skylane. I am currently too busy improving the interior view of a King Air, my Cessna 150 and my husband-to-be's Citabria.:D

I have flown my 150 from Virginia to El Paso. I had no real reason for doing it. I wanted to go to Arizona but the density altitude was really high. Actually I've taken several trips like that. I too have a "real job" that provides me with the means to fly my little bugchaser. When I am intubating some drunk at three in the morning I sometimes question if it's worth it. All I have to do is look at the picture on my desk of myself and nine of my closest friends standing in front of our airplanes. We flew to a little grass strip on the top of a mountain and had a picnic and a short nap. Best of luck on your adventure. You will find the greatest part of your journey will be the journey itself. We are most fortunate to be able to take such trips.

Fly Happy!!
HappyFlying;)
 
here's a few stories;

1)
my partner and i were flying banners for miller beer with a ce 180 in southern california. they asked that we fly in daytona beach during spring break. after we were done there, we decided to return to so. calif. by way of jamaica, the caymans and mexico.
(mexico requires a instrument rating for night flights)

2)a couple times i made a midnight freight run from albuquerque to lubbock in a ce-210; it was literallly nightmare

3)

i was towing banners in brownsville tewxas during spring break once, but texas doesn't allow mobile advertising for alcohol co's, so we had to re locate to florida. i stopped in galveston for fuel and went nearly direct to new orleans, crossing the gulf near the 12 mile int'l boundary. i landed in pensacola and a customs king air stopped nearby and let out a m-16 toting swat team that laid me out prone. they poured out my vitamin pills looking for drugs
 
TDTurbo,

Sorry for the delay in responding.

A couple of recommendations:

I would recommend not doing it IFR. I would recommend flying along the Alaska Highway. These recommendations come from my personal preferences and experiences. You may hear other opinions, your results may vary.

I would do the trip VFR. I’m not a big fan of IFR in single engine aircraft in he mountains. In the event of an engine failure, you’re going down in some pretty inhospitable terrain. You have very few options. In a lot of places in the lower 48, you may be within gliding distance of an airport, you may be over relatively flat terrain which may allow a survivable forced landing. Once you get past the prairie provinces in Canada, you won’t have those options. There are places where it is literally hours of flying time between the nearest airports. Another factor against IFR is icing. Icing is a year-round thing here. Your options for dealing with it are limited. There’s very few alternates, so your choices may be limited to returning to your origin or continuing to your destination. Frequently, descending out of it is not an option. The MEAs are high, (13,000 feet between Whitehorse and Watson Lake) and the freezing levels are low (6000-8000 feet is common in the summer) I’ve managed to find an abundance of ice in August at 10,000 feet. I’d rather not have to wrestle with it in an unprotected single engine airplane. Safety aspects aside, why go IFR? I can assure you that the inside of a cloud in the Northwest Territories looks just like the inside of a cloud in the upper Midwest. I’ve seen them both and there’s no difference. If you want to see the inside of clouds, you can do that in your area a lot easier and less expensively. For me the whole point of a recreational flight is to see the country. If you go VFR you’ll see the North. You’ll see barren mountains, the unbroken spruce forests, wildlife (if you fly low enough) , the raw austere beauty of the sub-arctic.

If you really have your heart set on flying IFR there are some differences Here in the US, when transitioning to an airway segment with a higher MEA, you start your climb at the fix which defines the segment with the higher MEA. A minimum climb gradient is assumed by the TERPs. Not so in Canada. There, and in many other parts of the world, you begin your climb so as to cross the fix at the new MEA. Failure to do so may mean an abrupt an unfortunate end to your trip. Be comfortable with non-radar procedures. Once you are past Edmonton, you’ve been given your last radar vector until you arrive in Anchorage. Know how to give a correct position report. They are expected and they are expected to be correct. FSS and ATC can get pretty snippy if you don’t give reports in the correct format. (or so I’ve heard) Make sure that you are able to get from the enroute structure to the approach and complete the approach without assistance. (if you’ve flown in the Caribbean you’re probably reasonable familiar with Non-radar. Know that departure procedures and missed approach procedure s are not merely advisory (this got a vacationing pilot in a lot of trouble in Valdez recently, and an f-15 pilot in Kodiak a while back) If the procedure says immediate turn, it means immediate turn. Make sure you check your plates for a departure procedure before getting starting up. If there is one, read it, use it.

In my opinion, the safest route is along the Alaska Highway. Most of the airports and services are along this corridor. RCO’s and navaids are closer together, there. It gives you the most options. If things go badly, you can land on the highway. The highway leads you through the lowest terrain. I’m not a real big fan of the coastal route from Washington through Southeast Alaska. The southeast is very rugged. The weather tends to be much worse than it is inland. If you have to make a forced landing your choices are usually limited to very steep, rocky mountains with very big trees, or the ocean which is very, very cold. The other side of that is that Southeast Alaska is one of the most astonishingly beautiful places on the planet. I’ve flown up and down the coast a number of times, but always in a twin. I’d have to have a really good reason to chose it over the highway route in a single engine land plane.

I would recommend starting no earlier than June. I’ve been snowed on in Fort Nelson, BC in May. There’s still ice on many lakes in Alaska then. Mid June through mid-August will probably give you the most pleasant weather. Most of my trips have been in the winter, it’s cold, and there’s not much daylight.

Regardless of when and how you go, make sure you have survival gear. It’s required both by Canadian Law and Alaska State Law. Survival gear should at the minimum meet the legal requirements of both Alaska and Canada. I would recommend bringing camping supplies; a lightweight tent and a good sleeping bag, freeze dried food, backpacking stove. Having the necessary supplies to comfortably spend the night might affect your decision making process when faced with the choice of continuing into deteriorating weather, turning back into deteriorating weather, or landing at a remote airstrip to wait for better weather. A little unscheduled camping trip is a lot better than a CFIT, VFR into IMC adventure. Be prepared Besides, you may *want* to camp out at some of the more remote places. Until a few years ago you were required to carry a firearm in your plane Alaska. It’s not a bad idea, I do in some circumstances. If you want to do that, be aware that Canadian firearms laws are much more restrictive. Handguns are illegal, and I think that shotguns and rifles with folding stocks are also. Look into it before you go.

Mu2driver has some good observations on Alaska also. (I gotta say that going into Seldovia in a MU2 must have been sporty) He’s especially on point about the weather. Take heed. Those of you in the lower 48 enjoy much more reliable weather information. Alaska and the Canadian Northwest are very large, and weather observing stations are few and far between comparatively. The geography is much more extreme, and thus the weather patterns are far more chaotic. The weather can change very quickly. All of this adds up to less reliable weather reporting and forecasting. Be careful, don’t take forecasts as gospel, realize that two stations reporting good Wx may have bad Wx between them. Keep your options open, have a plan B and a plan C, D etc
Charts and Stuff:

The Canadian Charts are much like our own. They have Sectionals and WACs Unlike our own, they are valid until updated, whenever that happens. The current edition of a VFR chart may be several years old. They have a very useful chart for doing hte trip. It’s the Alaska Highway Cchart. It’s at the same scale as a sectional, and shows all the same features as a sectional, but it is a strip along the entire Alaska highway. I would highly recommend it for any trip up here. Make sure that you have the Canada Flight Supplement and the Alaska Supplement. The Alaska Supplement contains the same information as the Airport and Facility Directories for the lower 48. The airport info. is in the same familiar format. In addition it has quite a bit of other information about flying in and to Alaska, including the survival gear requirements for both Alaska and Canada. The Canada Flight Supplement is one book which has all the information for all airports and navaids in Canada. The format is different but it has the same type of info as the US A/F directory. The best source that I’ve found for Canadian Charts is Sporty’s they carry the full complement of IFR and VFR charts and the Canada Flight Supplement. On a few occasions that they’ve not had the current version of charts I ordered, they sent me the previous version free of charge until they could get the new update. Sporty’s also carries Alaska Charts and the Alaska Supplement.

I’m running out of advice here, but I’m more than happy to answer questions. It’s a great trip, it’ll be an experience of a lifetime. I still have vivid memories of my first trip Anchorage to OldTown, Maine in December in a Cessna 180, and back to Anchorage in January.....Flying through the Liard River Canyon, Canadian Fuel truck drivers competing for your business, landing in Watson Lake with at 30 below with my tailwheel frozen solid, partying with the Fort Nelson FSS staff on a multi day Wx delay......


Regards
 
(I gotta say that going into Seldovia in a MU2 must have been sporty)

Yeah, you got me on that one...I am not sure what I was thinking, but I did fly over Seldovia once in my Uncle's 172 and he wanted to go land there but I said I would rather go back to his place in Homer...that would be a tight one for even a little 172 with those mountains totally surrounding it in very close proximity. It would probably take about 10 turns over the airport just to climb out of there.
His 172 was fun until his partner crashed it trying to land on a grass field that turned out to be submerged in water.
He had the plane rigged with a C-310 nose fork so he could take it to remote places
I thought it was the neatest thing when we flew it across Cook Inlet to the Lake Ilimnia(sp) area. We just landed in the middle of nowhere, made camp, and went caribu hunting for a couple of days.


What I meant to say was that we flew into Soldotna (I think that is the place between Homer and Anchorage on the Kenai river) Got a couple of big Kings up there.
 
>>>>What I meant to say was that we flew into Soldotna (I think that is the place between Homer and Anchorage on the Kenai river)

Yep, that's the place, right on the Kenai River. That's where I finished up my training for my PPL, tiik the checkride in at Kenai. Shame you didn't drop into Seldovia, it's a neat place. You can catch Kings out of the slough between town and the airport. Plenty of room for a 172, although the hills can be a little intimidating. There's a guy who lives in Seldovia who owns an Apache and flies it in and out of there.

regards
 
A Squared,

Excellant Post. Posts like yours is what keeps Flightinfo.com one of the very best. Keep up the good work.

KlingonLRDRVR
 
A squared,

That's the exact kind of info I was looking for! Thanks for putting in the time to respond in detail. I would only consider flying IFR segments with low MEA's.

Believe it or not, I have allot of time flying in the Carribean but never had to do position reporting. Probably because once I was there island hopping, I did most of it VFR.:)

I won't be flying for awhile, I am 300 hrs past TBO, so it's overhaul time.:( I am terrified that the engine won't be nearly as reliable, it has 2300 hrs on it now and 0 problems.....ever! With all the problems Lycoming is having with quality control, I'm afraid it might blow up after 300 hrs.:eek: I can't wait to see what Toyota has in store for the US GA market, it should be a big wake up call for Cessna and the like. Thanks again everybody for your helpful response!
 

Latest resources

Back
Top