Fort Nelson was massively undersold to me by pilot report as an industrial airport, noisy and run down, with friendly people. As its geology, it's the first town out of the mountains, on the flatter prairie. It's a heart for the oilfields, with a humming industrial hub supporting them, instead of the touristy feel of Whitehorse or the silence and sparrows and sunsets of Watson Lake. To me, it feels like Merrill Field. It feels like home, alive with people doing things with aviation and going places.
The people are awesome. The FBO, Sky North Aviation Fuels, was officially closed for the day when I got in, but the gent working there offered a ride into town. The grill, he apologized, was out of propane for grilling up hot dogs or burgers, but I was welcome to the microwave, the incredibly comfy couch, the shower, the small kitchen, the wireless... It is a place designed to keep people happy even when waiting out weather for days. The people are what turn it from a nice place into an awesome one.
The next morning, Fort Saint John had ceilings of 600 feet. The low that was forecast to move... hadn't. A couple in a nice lightly modified Cessna still mostly kitted for high, fast, and long distance took off, as did a couple in a helicopter. The two very nice gents who'd camped out at Watson Lake filed IFR, but came back with a bad mag. We pooled our toolkits and set to work finding and fixing the problem (and fixing a primer line while we were at it). As they were an experienced A&P and IA, I mostly held tools, fetched things, and learned about mags (one of the things that hasn't broken on my plane yet. ) After fixing the obvious problem, reassembling and timing everything, and finding the secondary problem, we turned to the mechanic Sky North found. He wasn't officially working today, but was doing paperwork in the shop. A new mag was procured, timing box borrowed, and the airplane repaired.
I saw them off, as ceilings has risen, bit visibility had dropped to 5 miles with light rain and mist. I don't mind relatively low ceilings, but I very much mind low visibility. You don't hit what you see coming. So I hung out, chatted with folks, and am preparing for a second night with my sleeping bag on the couch of incredible comfiness.
Tomorrow, if the low goes where I want it to, I'll be in Ft. St. John, or maybe all the way to Grande Prairie. If not, there are a lot worse places to spend a quiet Sunday! Maybe I'll even find all the autocorrect spelling and grammar errors in these last posts...
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Friday, July 8, 2011
Watson Lake
The sound of Watson Lake is the silence of wind and sparrows, as rain falls on distant hills. I asked the radio as I landed long where the fuel was, and they said, "Just look for the big white tank that says AVGAS." The fuel tank I needed was behind me, so I went left instead of right, toward the big tank that said AVGAS 100LL. This tank belonged to the forestry fire-fighting base, as it sat next to the Jet A tank and three tanks of fire retardant for water bombers. The only person on duty came out to wave me off, but we got to talking instead. Well, some talking, and a lot of watching the distant rain, and waving idly at mosquitos.
The entire airfield is huge, for all the crosswind runway is closed and the control tower stands vacant (but unlike the WWII hangar barely inhabited by a very few planes and a great many swallows nesting above the doors, near-pristine.) Inside the terminal with its motion-activated lights, the walls are covered with pictures from the lend-lease program, and inset glass cases with artifacts. It was utterly silent, and felt like a monument to flight - not even a museum, but rather something lovingly gathered and preserved, in pristine condition, to a town once thriving, to a distant past when air travel was not an intrusive, abusive trial, set in a museum exhibit to the history of flight in the Yukon.
In a low side wing, there are signs of life - the television keeping the person behind Watson Lake Radio awake. The Community Aerodrome Radio Station folks in the Yukon have all been very friendly, very accustomed to solitude, and very willing to talk about anything to a live human being. The brothers who man the afternoon and graveyard shifts were no elections to this rule, and shared in-depth history and background on the weather patterns, from the vicious spring fog to the frequency of thunderstorms, and on life in general.
Out by the gazebo by the lake, two gentlemen from Massachusetts and the most mellow Jack Russell terriers ever were camping with their 182... the first example of the breed I can remember seeing with small tires and wheelpants. When not modified for the bush, they can haul serious amounts of stuff at very high rates of speed! They very generously shared their dinner, and we talked late into the night on aircraft maintenance, sattelite components, balloon launching in Antarctica, dogs, guns, and people.
No matter how nice the night (and it was beautiful), I elected to forego the 5 star camping experience for a warm, dry couch with no beautiful views of the long sunset, no campfire, no haunting cries of loons... and no mosquitos, no rain, and thermostat controlled warmth. Romantic, after two nights camping, I am not.
The entire airfield is huge, for all the crosswind runway is closed and the control tower stands vacant (but unlike the WWII hangar barely inhabited by a very few planes and a great many swallows nesting above the doors, near-pristine.) Inside the terminal with its motion-activated lights, the walls are covered with pictures from the lend-lease program, and inset glass cases with artifacts. It was utterly silent, and felt like a monument to flight - not even a museum, but rather something lovingly gathered and preserved, in pristine condition, to a town once thriving, to a distant past when air travel was not an intrusive, abusive trial, set in a museum exhibit to the history of flight in the Yukon.
In a low side wing, there are signs of life - the television keeping the person behind Watson Lake Radio awake. The Community Aerodrome Radio Station folks in the Yukon have all been very friendly, very accustomed to solitude, and very willing to talk about anything to a live human being. The brothers who man the afternoon and graveyard shifts were no elections to this rule, and shared in-depth history and background on the weather patterns, from the vicious spring fog to the frequency of thunderstorms, and on life in general.
Out by the gazebo by the lake, two gentlemen from Massachusetts and the most mellow Jack Russell terriers ever were camping with their 182... the first example of the breed I can remember seeing with small tires and wheelpants. When not modified for the bush, they can haul serious amounts of stuff at very high rates of speed! They very generously shared their dinner, and we talked late into the night on aircraft maintenance, sattelite components, balloon launching in Antarctica, dogs, guns, and people.
No matter how nice the night (and it was beautiful), I elected to forego the 5 star camping experience for a warm, dry couch with no beautiful views of the long sunset, no campfire, no haunting cries of loons... and no mosquitos, no rain, and thermostat controlled warmth. Romantic, after two nights camping, I am not.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
In whitehorse
Got escorted to the border by The Gunny and J of Call to Wings. Wonderful time, awesome friends. Miss them already.
Made Beaver Creek at 8pm local, cleared customs, got tent set up, tea and oatmeal, went to sleep.
Then it rained. and rained. And rained.
Made it whitehorse anyway. Exhausted. Thuderstorms popping up all over, going to stay here tonight.
Cell phone no worky. May update later, may update in Montana. Take care!
Made Beaver Creek at 8pm local, cleared customs, got tent set up, tea and oatmeal, went to sleep.
Then it rained. and rained. And rained.
Made it whitehorse anyway. Exhausted. Thuderstorms popping up all over, going to stay here tonight.
Cell phone no worky. May update later, may update in Montana. Take care!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Independance
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
-The Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key
1814
It's not a perfect nation by any stretch, but there are none better. I'm proud to belong to her in bone, blood, and spirit, and grateful for all my ancestors who fought and fled to come here, and all the men and women, military and civilian, who have made and continue to make her the land of the free and the home of the brave.
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
-The Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key
1814
It's not a perfect nation by any stretch, but there are none better. I'm proud to belong to her in bone, blood, and spirit, and grateful for all my ancestors who fought and fled to come here, and all the men and women, military and civilian, who have made and continue to make her the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Rain, rain go away
This is not a sign of hope and cheer. This is a sign that the cloud deck is a little broken over by the next range of mountains to the west, and the sun has sunk down low enough to light the rain falling on our heads. (This was taken around 11:30pm last night.)
Tahetna Pass - Closed. Eureka - MVFR. Gulkana - MVFR. Mentasta Pass - about what you'd expect, but at least you can see sunlight in the broken layers! Big Delta - MVFR. Northway - IFR.
So for those of you who were asking, that's what a double rainbow means.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Waiting on weather
Not dead, not gone yet. Just waitin' on weather. There was a beautiful day - but I was down sick. There was another beautiful day - and I was still trying to get over the sick. I got healthy, and the weather's been down.
Today, the weather here is good, the weather at Tok and Northway is... passable VFR... and Mentasta pass is "Um, I think I see a little sunlight coming under those clouds, maybe..."
Not that I've been grounded - I took a fellow apprentice mechanic flying, and it was as rewarding to see the fun she was having as it was to fly. She helped rebuild the tailwheel and overhaul my brakes, among other help, so it was fun to let her take the controls and enjoy the feel of being in the air in something she'd worked on.
Yesterday, I went up with The Gunny, but I was the least important passenger in the plane - the most important one was the eagle scout sitting up front, who was completing his aviation merit badge, and his father sitting behind him. The Gunny's right - you do get to see a lot more when you're an interested passenger instead of the pilot focusing on the runway coming up.
Today, if able, The Gunny and I may take his plane to Talkeetna for lunch. I'll mail out a last few items - tomorrow I'll drop off the town car my favorite park ranger in the whole wide world has let me borrow. And if I'm not gone by Saturday, unless we're socked in solid, I'll be going as far as I can, even if I have to camp, to get out of here twenty or a hundred or three hundred miles at a time.
I miss my husband. Alaska's glorious, but it's time to be gone, to be home.
Today, the weather here is good, the weather at Tok and Northway is... passable VFR... and Mentasta pass is "Um, I think I see a little sunlight coming under those clouds, maybe..."
Not that I've been grounded - I took a fellow apprentice mechanic flying, and it was as rewarding to see the fun she was having as it was to fly. She helped rebuild the tailwheel and overhaul my brakes, among other help, so it was fun to let her take the controls and enjoy the feel of being in the air in something she'd worked on.
Yesterday, I went up with The Gunny, but I was the least important passenger in the plane - the most important one was the eagle scout sitting up front, who was completing his aviation merit badge, and his father sitting behind him. The Gunny's right - you do get to see a lot more when you're an interested passenger instead of the pilot focusing on the runway coming up.
Today, if able, The Gunny and I may take his plane to Talkeetna for lunch. I'll mail out a last few items - tomorrow I'll drop off the town car my favorite park ranger in the whole wide world has let me borrow. And if I'm not gone by Saturday, unless we're socked in solid, I'll be going as far as I can, even if I have to camp, to get out of here twenty or a hundred or three hundred miles at a time.
I miss my husband. Alaska's glorious, but it's time to be gone, to be home.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Homer Trip
The weather has been less than stellar, and I needed a long cross-country trip to really get the feel for fuel burn when going places, not in the pattern or hanging around something at a slow speed. The Gunny and I have long wanted to give each other rides in our airplanes, trips dreamed of when our birds both sat under extensive maintenance in the same hangar. We picked a day, and it spawned miserable weather. As the day wore on, the clouds lifted from MVFR to fully VFR, and with the long sunlight of almost-solstice, it seemed like the best chance was to seize the moment. If all the passes are closed, straight south along the mountains to Homer was opening up.
Going south across Turnagain Arm, I couldn't climb as high as I'd like for a water crossing - there were solid clouds in the way. My fuel burn may be a little rich for better weather, as the following picture shows well why carb heat was pulled practically from takeoff to landing.
click to embiggen; the pictures look better when bigger!
Fortunately, we didn't have to go directly through much rain, and the rest of the way was more like this:
The Gunny is a helicopter pilot. Yes, he has a "seized-wing" airplane he loves, but rotor-wing is addictive enough that it's very rare to find someone who'll identify with fixed-wing at heart if they have both ratings. Like most rotor-wing pilots, especially those who learned their training for environments where people are shooting at them, he prefers a flight altitude of about ten feet below tree level. I prefer about 2000 AGL as a cruising altitude. When he had the controls, this meant we compromised, if not without some good-natured teasing.
Skilak Lake
Lake Tustamena. If anything, the camera washed out the startlingly bright shade of blue that comes with the rock flour in the glacial meltwater.
South of Tustamena, the land rises in a giant swelling dome of rock wreathed in clouds. We tucked toward the mountains, taking the channel carved by massive glaciers before, following meltwater rivers down to Katchemak Bay.
No photos of the Bay itself, though it is very impressive - about the time we came in range of Homer's CTAF, got the ATIS, and got ready to enter a long final, another plane reported in behind me. I know the plane, and it's owner, and it's a fast, impressive hauling machine. (I keep thinking it's a twin. It's not, but the owner does work all over the state, and it hauls everywhere from Nome to Dillingham to Kodiak to Yakutat every day there's a job.) So I was more interested in flying the plane and reporting my position to the other traffic than taking pictures.
(He didn't spot me until I was on the runway - if he had, I would have arranged for him to overtake me. But he couldn't find my bright yellow plane, so he ended up doing a 360 for spacing, despite starting 8 miles behind me at the first report. He's fast.)
With my new nifty phone with internet, I looked up a cab company, and used the highest-tech, most-reliable method for finding a great restaurant: ask the cabbie. It worked, too - Fat Olives is a great restaurant. Some really good food and strong coffee later, we returned to the airport.
On the way back, we went the long way, stopping at Kenai for the utter luxury of flush toilets. Sure, I could have landed at some short strip and used the weeds, but honestly? I like hot running water and civilization. I should have decided to put my bulky jacket back on when getting in the cockpit, but it wasn't until the next day that I'd realize I was already falling sick. The cabin heat, despite its legendary weakness, actually served well enough to keep our feet warm, and as we got closer to home, the sun drew down to hover below the cloud deck, spilling golden evening sunshine across the world and painting the mountains in burgundies and claret.
Going south across Turnagain Arm, I couldn't climb as high as I'd like for a water crossing - there were solid clouds in the way. My fuel burn may be a little rich for better weather, as the following picture shows well why carb heat was pulled practically from takeoff to landing.
click to embiggen; the pictures look better when bigger!
Fortunately, we didn't have to go directly through much rain, and the rest of the way was more like this:
The Gunny is a helicopter pilot. Yes, he has a "seized-wing" airplane he loves, but rotor-wing is addictive enough that it's very rare to find someone who'll identify with fixed-wing at heart if they have both ratings. Like most rotor-wing pilots, especially those who learned their training for environments where people are shooting at them, he prefers a flight altitude of about ten feet below tree level. I prefer about 2000 AGL as a cruising altitude. When he had the controls, this meant we compromised, if not without some good-natured teasing.
Skilak Lake
Lake Tustamena. If anything, the camera washed out the startlingly bright shade of blue that comes with the rock flour in the glacial meltwater.
South of Tustamena, the land rises in a giant swelling dome of rock wreathed in clouds. We tucked toward the mountains, taking the channel carved by massive glaciers before, following meltwater rivers down to Katchemak Bay.
No photos of the Bay itself, though it is very impressive - about the time we came in range of Homer's CTAF, got the ATIS, and got ready to enter a long final, another plane reported in behind me. I know the plane, and it's owner, and it's a fast, impressive hauling machine. (I keep thinking it's a twin. It's not, but the owner does work all over the state, and it hauls everywhere from Nome to Dillingham to Kodiak to Yakutat every day there's a job.) So I was more interested in flying the plane and reporting my position to the other traffic than taking pictures.
(He didn't spot me until I was on the runway - if he had, I would have arranged for him to overtake me. But he couldn't find my bright yellow plane, so he ended up doing a 360 for spacing, despite starting 8 miles behind me at the first report. He's fast.)
With my new nifty phone with internet, I looked up a cab company, and used the highest-tech, most-reliable method for finding a great restaurant: ask the cabbie. It worked, too - Fat Olives is a great restaurant. Some really good food and strong coffee later, we returned to the airport.
On the way back, we went the long way, stopping at Kenai for the utter luxury of flush toilets. Sure, I could have landed at some short strip and used the weeds, but honestly? I like hot running water and civilization. I should have decided to put my bulky jacket back on when getting in the cockpit, but it wasn't until the next day that I'd realize I was already falling sick. The cabin heat, despite its legendary weakness, actually served well enough to keep our feet warm, and as we got closer to home, the sun drew down to hover below the cloud deck, spilling golden evening sunshine across the world and painting the mountains in burgundies and claret.
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