Life at 135 miles an hour

Monday was a beautiful, warm, sunny day - the kind where it's just cool enough that there's not that much convective turbulence, and all the puffy clouds are small, sky bright blue, mountains flush with green at their bases and starting to only have runs and streaks of ice left near their tops. The trees are in leaf, the ground carpeted in green, and we are so far into spring that things are even starting to bloom.

(I remember, in the lower 48, flowers came first and then leaves came later. Here, as soon as it's warm enough, everything in the plant kingdom immediately burst fully into leaf, soaking up every photon of our short summer's sunshine for growth and food. Flowers come later.)

Flying Buddy, the beagle, and I took the 180 over to Wolf Lake, where we took the measure of the last attached pieces of hardware from the wheelpants. He wanted to remove everything - not just to clean up the landing gear, but also so he could trade the mud, tundra, and weed collectors to someone who flies off asphalt all the time and wants the teardrop-shaped metal pieces that clean up drag and let a plane go faster for less fuel. The beagle promptly started rolling on her back and tearing around the property, baying happily. Flying buddy and I jacked up the airplane, dragged the right toolbox over, and started by pulling a cotter pin and taking off the right brake pad. After checking its depth and wear pattern, we undid no few bolts, and carefully worked the wheel off. Then we managed to take off the plate between wheel and landing gear that supports the wheelpants. Then came the fun of putting everything back on with a different axle nut, and fishing a cotter pin blindly through the wheel. (Why is it things are always easier to take apart than put together?)

We detoured briefly to wander down a few hangars away, admire two beautiful C-123's, one with some busty nose art proclaiming her "Large Marge" (if you've watched "Con Air" with Nicholas Cage, you've seen her before, but she's back to being a working freight-hauler again), and borrow an inch-and-a-half socket for the axle nut that refused to thread in. One of the joys of aviation often observed but rarely stated is this: If you are not fundamentally honest with yourself, when flying, you will die. Fundamental honesty with yourself often leads to fundamental honesty with others, making this vocation of aviation a place where a person's word is a solid bond. Combined with a shared love for airplanes, it leads to easy honesty and sharing - whether large, expensive, odd tools or someone's plane or car - among equals.

After a few hours wrestling with the plane, we had everything put back together, tools returned or put away, and a shopping list (new brakes) for the next paycheck. It was eight in the afternoon, and there were still three hours til sunset to play. As soon as we had retracted flaps and were climbing out, Flying Buddy asked with a grin in his voice, "Want to fly her?"

I did, as I almost always do. And I looked around the Matanuska Valley, and picked the one way I hadn't been yet. "What's up there?"
"The Matanuska Glacier." He replied, and was silent a moment. "That's the way to Tazlina, too."
"Sounds good to me." I turned and headed toward it. What better reason is needed when you have full fuel, good wings, and sunshine?

I pointed the nose, and headed that way. I still don't have dealing with a manifold pressure and prop control down as second nature, and we talked about it, chatted about work, pointed out airstrips, eyed gravel bars on the river, and made our way up the rising terrain. I could not trim that plane out to level - she has too much horsepower for a mild turn or two of the trim wheel to suffice - and I didn't mind, as our climb kept pace with the terrain.

The Cessna 180 has six cylinders, which runs so much smoother and doesn't hurt my damaged knee near as much as the four-banger PA-12. It also runs much faster - while I'm used to life cruising at 90 and playing around at 50 to 80 miles an hour, the airspeed and groundspeed agreed - we were picking our way through the mountains, threading along at 135. Given a thousand extra feet from the surface more than usual, (it's unfamiliar terrain, and altitude is time to make decisions, where time is life), the surface didn't seem to move that much faster - but we were screaming along.

Even the extra height could not diminish the glacier-carved grandeur below, with sheer cliffs tumbling down, high hanging valleys, deep-carved crevasses and creeks and the gravel-braided river deep in its channel, swathes of bright green birch, dark green spruce, grey-brown beetle-kill, and stark spires and walls of naked rock thrown high with only the ragged remnants of winter and wisps of clouds failing to soften their ragged jagged triumph.

We land at Eureka/Skelton, next to the highway, after two low passes. The sinkhole was hard to spot, despite being a foot and a half deep - someone had painted a ring around it and an X through it with white paint some time back, but now the low scrub on the runway hid the faded paint remains. (Last time Flying Buddy was here, he landed on the highway, as the snow in the strip was rotten.) He had the plane - I'm used to life at 40mph on short final; 80 on final is far too fast for me to be fumbling through the extra steps of a controllable-pitch propeller. We came down and touched a bit hard, one light bounce before planting the plane firmly. Eureka Lodge's cafe was already closed for the evening (it was a little past 9), so we headed back to the plane, had some bottled water, let the dog out to go water a bush. The lake on the other side of the highway still had a thick coating of ice, and only a little open water at the edge - summer comes from sea-level up, and we were at four thousand feet, not far from tundra.

Taking off, I flew back to Birchwood, and we drove home as the sun finally set below the mountains. Less than a month til solstice, the sky would not grow dark for hours yet, but the warmth was rapidly leaving the air. It was a good day.

Stone and Wood

Some girls really like diamonds. Me, every time I think of diamonds, I think of sitting in my father's shop, doors open and humid summer air moving through, having swept up all the welding slag, cleaned the stray pieces of metal out from under the 20-ton punch press, and finished a box of small assembly parts. As the shop cat slept on top of the air compressor, completely oblivious to the racket (and amazingly not deaf), Dad would show me different tools and explain their use - like when I was finally big enough to learn to use the cutting torch. At one point, shortly after I'd gotten big enough to use the spot welder, he was going through a box of drill bits, and showed me what a diamond drill bit looked like.

I looked at the bits on the end, and said, "Those are diamonds like on mom's ring?"

"Yes. When not in jewelry, diamonds are five bucks a pound." Dad smiled down at me, and I smiled up at him.

Ever since then, no matter how flashy and sparkly the glitter, the first thing that leaps to my mind and tongue when I see diamonds is "Five bucks a pound!" So, ah, I'm not really a diamond girl, unless I really need a darned good drill bit.

Years later, a man broached the subject of jewelery of specific intent with me. I informed him that I didn't really care for jewelry, am quite hard on it, and tend to lose it - and whatever it is, it shouldn't be a diamond. He instead offered first a handcrafted ring with an odd and lovely stone. Then, he offered something that, with care and lack of ground-looping, should last longer than either of us - sixteen feet of the finest crafted Sitka Spruce, crafted into two spars.

It may not impress the ladies that determine social standing by the size of your left-hand rock, but it will hold our lives, and give us wings to fly. It lets me stop biding my time, staring skyward and saving pennies ferociously between the medical bills, and move forward into action, into getting things done, wings built, healing and returning to where my soul sings in joy. He has given me the keys to flight, hope held golden and glowing in my hand, smelling of fresh varnish drilled and laminated to standards drawn up in 1940.

Soon, we shall be together, doors open to let the warm summer air move through, having measured and counted, attached golden cadmium-washed hardware and deep green zinc chromate primed compression struts and ribs, jury and strut attach brackets, and finally be be ready, after trammeling, to tap brass nails to ribs and spars and have the skeleton of my beloved bird ready to accept her skin, her broken wings made whole again. That is my jewelry, beautiful and hand-crafted together with love and laughter and dreams worked in.

Wait, I'm a member of what now?

The Alaska Airmen's Association Trade Show & Conference, generally called The Trade Show, or The Aviation Trade Show, is this weekend at the FedEx maintenance hangar at Anchorage International. Well, really, it's centered in the hangar with all 275 exhibitors inside, but even a building large enough to work on a 737 indoors is too small to contain it, and the static displays including F-22 raptors to WWII warbirds, FedEx Caravan, DC-3, C-47, Grumman Goose and Albatross, Aviat Husky or three, Sportsman, Bushhawk, supercubs and bush plane variants in kit, experimental, and production, business jets, sleek personal low-wing luxury aircraft... they take up more ramp space than the whole huge hangar does, and we haven't even started on the hangar door manufacturers or the airplane simulators.

I stopped by the Supercub.org booth, which was decked out again in Hawaiian theme. After all, people who are part of a lively and active forum may not recognize each other by face, so a loud Hawaiian shirt or a lei helps. Myself, I've never been a member, though I've skimmed the site to cross-check rumors and facts that come through the aviation community.

A friend was standing there talking to someone - after grabbing a mocha to soothe a sore throat, I figured I'd stop and say hi. He turned to me, waved a hand as if trying to recall something, then said "Oh, yeah! You left your earrings in the PA-12! At least, I think they're yours. Ivory and silver?"

I grinned up at him, and flipped my wrist. "Well, given you're not the kind of guy to wear earrings, they're probably mine!" They are, in fact. I took them off because they hurt when the headset pressed them into my ears, and I'd forgotten about it. He laughed, and we fell to talking airplanes. Next thing I knew, one of the supercub.org guys was approaching, and draped a lei over my head and hugged me. Startled, I protested. "But I don't have a supercub! I have a Taylorcraft!"

"That's all right! Your third wheel, and your heart, is in the right place!" They grinned and had no intention of taking the identifying marks of the supercub crowd back.

Outnumbered and outgunned, as well as unexpectedly inducted, looked back over at my flying buddy, and said, "So, does this mean I actually have to create a login and leave pithy comments now instead of just reading?" The grin on his face indicated that he, too, saw nothing wrong with me being one of these guys. There are worse crowds to be associated with!

When History Takes Wing

The Alamo Liaison Squadron picnic & fly-in was incredibly fun - so much so that I kept on keeping on, despite getting roasted through SPF 50 sunblock and flirting with heatstroke. (My skin going from clammy to being burning hot to the touch, nausea, weakness, inability to think straight, and graying out when standing up are Not Fun. More application of cold water to the head, neck, shirt, and lots more in the body, along with sitting in what shade there was, certainly helped.)

The airplanes are incredibly fascinating - and I will point out in my defense that I was there to glean knowledge on restoration from people who work on the same vintage airplanes as I have, so of course we talked a lot of shop. Of course, it was also fun to learn about different flying conditions in this environment, and swap stories, and compare flying habits, fact-check stereotypes and rumors....



I love my Taylorcraft. And she is a living example of what a P-51 Mustang owner said, once: "When these airplanes were made, they were made to be disposable. And after the war was over, they were treated as so much junk. But as the years go on, the airplane becomes something more, something precious, until you are no longer an airplane's owner. Now, I am no longer the airplane's owner; I am the caretaker of a valuable piece of history."

These aircraft weren't really expected to last - Taylorcrafts of the Great Depression were the Kias of their day - expected to be gone in 5-10 years. Now, 68 years later, she's still hanging in there, still sitting at the strip and ready to fly as soon as I sculpt metal, wood, fabric and dope together into wings for her. She isn't just a plane, nor just an old, slightly battered plane, nor just another plane modified a little for the Alaskan bush... she's a Pre-World War II plane, and her logbooks show the day that shall live in infamy. She was out flying that day, and her day was cut short when the airfield manager closed the field. She was in the Civilian Pilot Training Program / War Training Service, training young men to go fly in the war.

Still, for all that she is a precious piece of history, I met something far more valuable, infinitely more precious at this fly-in. You see, I can rebuild my little airplane. She's been rebuilt many times over the years, and that very ability to be repaired will ensure she'll likely see a century, maybe far more. But the men who flew planes like her, the eyes that have seen what now we have only fading photographs and a few movie clips to record, the men that lived a history now being lost because it is not politically correct, or because few realize how important even the "minor" parts were... sadly, they grow fewer every year, and there is now way to replace them.

It was my great fortune to be introduce (Thanks, Ryan!) to a gentleman who flew the L5 Stinson in the Pacific Theater during WWII. Like many men of his generation, he was polite, and quiet, and sparse with words - but like any pilot, if there's a "I learned from that!" story about flying, once started, he'll tell it with a grin. I only wish that I had more questions to ask him, and that I had heard more stories from him.

As it was, I sat in the shade of a hangar, panted, drank a lot of water, limped around and talked to people, and watched history take wing in the eyes and hearts of people. And while I may have been too exhausted to take part in the flour bombing, it was hard to regret that when I saw the huge grins of excitement on the faces of the kids in the rear seats headed skyward to try to drop packages of flour inside the marked circle!

Flying in Texas

Today is the day before the Alamo Liaison Squadron has their Annual Bluebonnet Picnic featuring a truly impressive collection of Liaison Aircraft from WWII.

So, naturally, today everyone was there, tidying hangars, washing airplanes and tables, moving chairs, and getting ready for the event. The airplanes were being moved around so the projects would be more in back, and the best of the breeds up front, and nobody minded in the least my wandering around and asking questions, taking lots of pictures, and trying to see and learn everything.

Unless many museums which I find mildly boring, this is no collection of piled memorabilia - not a single glass case in sight! Instead, the airplanes are the museum, and as airplanes should be, they are regularly cared for and flown out of the grass strip. If you want to know how she really flies, how she needs to be cared for, how she feels, what her quirks are, where to find parts... now this is a museum where the staffers have wind-ruffled hair and stories of their own, as well as oral histories passed on down!

I may not make the Valdez May Day Fly-In as I'll probably be too busy working, but tomorrow I get to see spot landing contests and flour bombing competitions all the same, as well as formation flying and an open floor for World War Two veterans to tell their stories! And it opens with bagpipes. I love bagpipes - I believe in loud expressions of freedom!

More later on how an L-5 flies - or, better yet, if you are nearby, come see for yourself!

Ambushed in the Airport Parking

After twelve hours of travel (one missed connection and being on standby for two flights), I arrived in Houston, Texas. Even as we were on final, I knew I was in trouble - we were at altitude and I was sweating slightly. (I'd just left a comfortably warm day of 44 degrees at home.) As I walked up the jetway, I had a brief impression of trying to breath a warm soup of jet exhaust before getting into the climate-controlled terminal. Upon meeting and greeting Peter, I walked with him all unsuspecting into the ambush in the parking garage.

Barely had I taken ten steps, shuffling a little awkwardly with my carry-on luggage that seemed to be growing heavier and heavier every time I picked it up, when WHAM!

I got clobbered with a full body slam that drove the breath out of my lungs. At first I thought I had merely been tag-teamed by two southern muggers, Mr. Heat and his drinking buddy Mr. Humidity, but as I simply struggled to breathe through their blows while Peter hurriedly dragged me to the safety of an air-conditioned truck, I realized that the other guy on the three-day bender at the bar, Mr. Smog, had joined in.

Much gasping and wheezing and a small exhausted nap later, I woke up and found myself on the road between Houston and San Antonio. We were pulling into a stop for some gas, and the sky was blue and filed with puffy clouds, the wind was a good steady fifteen knots with gusts, the air was comfortably, pleasantly warm, full of bright sunshine, the earth was lush and verdant with green growing things, and the cutest tiny little black birds that look like raven chicks almost too young to fly, but have this big showy black tail almost bigger than their body were filling the air with melodious chirping. (What are they?)

So I'm going to give Texas a second chance before fleeing in horror... but Houston might just have used up any chance for me to ever want to set foot there again.

a little more on subarctic and arctic flying

As always, it's far wiser to walk a strip before you decide to land there. Just because a plane or track from a plane are already there doesn't mean: 1.) it didn't crash there and get helicoptered out. 2.) your plane has the same capabilities as that plane. 3.) the soil conditions and / or the weather that allowed that landing and takeoff are still present.

Clumps and dense tufts of grass on dry gravel often surround a sizeable rock, as the grass is thriving on the moisture under the rock. On tidal gravel, on the other hand, the grass will surround a hole where drainage provides proper conditions for grass.

If you see a bright green meadow in an unfamiliar area, do not land in the meadow to check it out. Usually said "meadow" is a nice patch of muskeg, too watery for trees to survive, and so soft that landing will flip your airplane on its back. Getting the plane helicoptered out is expensive.

Things to think about: if you flip your airplane on its back, the ELT is broadcasting into the dirt. No matter how powerful, no one's gonna hear it. Same if you sink your plane; water is very effective at shielding and cutting off all emissions. This is why it may be wise to think about getting a portable ELT.

When planning your takeoff, do not assume you can fly low and slow over a cut bank or steep lake shore - if you're still in ground effect and have not achieved flying speed, you're going to settle down into the ground / water right after losing your ground effect lift.

You do need to worry about distant weather. Rain upriver makes the water level rise, and shortens the length of your gravel bar runway / campsite while also softening and loosening the gravel surface.

During summer, dense fog frequently lies very low over the arctic coast. Around midnight, when the sun dips below the overcast and is just above the horizon on the sea, the sunlight gets in under the fog and can heat the ground enough to lift the fog and allow VFR flight.