Extreme Cold/Extreme Heat

[Thankful Otter]

When we used to hunt wolves in the winter time out in the Alaska Range, sometimes when we ran into bad weather trying to get back thru the passes, and it was getting dark, we had to land and stay in a small tent.
I had a really good Eddie Bauer sleeping bag that was good to -20 or so . Lots of guys sleep in their boots; but
I never could; So always took them off. Of course they were -20 in the morning and I found that getting into them without some form of preheating was trickier than keeping the rifle working correctly! :lol: If we could get to a trappers cabin then everything was hunky dory, as we simply drained the oil out of the engines into a metal gas can and even if it was -30 the next morning if you warmed the oil up hot on the woodstove and then dumped it into the engine it would drive the hoar frost right out of the motor and you could pull the prop thru by hand 8/10 times and the engine would start right up. If the motor was wore out and had poor compression the old trick was to have your pardner stand right in front of the air filter and as you cranked the engine , spray some either right thru the blades into the air filter direct into the carburetor! That would lite it up! Hard on the piston and rings; but it would get you going! The guns were easy, the plane was much harder. :shock:

+ 1, of all the things that can go wrong because of the cold, the rifles are the least of our worries. But as I said in my first response on this thread, keep them dry, use them dry.

Earle, what has been your worse landing experience, wheels, float, ski--or anyone who does this all the time

 

[35 Whelen]

YH,
Well I guess I would have to say that after a lifetime of flying in the bush, flying floats was the safest after you learn to read the rivers, and handle an overloaded airplane. Then flying big tundra tires were next and because they are really more like giant innertubes that tires and inflate with such low preasure they were the next safests bet,
But flying skis has some surprises that you just could really never pin down ............... anytime you landed into unknown conditions there could be something hidden under the snow that you had no way of knowing and when you hit it that could be anything from embarrassing right up to totaling the airplane.
The overflow you cant see under the snow when you landed on a lake [slush] was worse than thick cement as you settled down into it and lots of times you cant add full power quick enough and get sucked into it ......... that can involve a day or so freezing down a snowshoed path in front of it waiting for that to freeze up and jacking the plane up out of the slush with a homemade tripod cut from spruce poles and then putting spruce boughs under it so it wont refreeze down. Taking off heavy into snowdrifts can do massive damage to the wings and undercarriage and I actually poped a windsheld right out of an old Cessna 180 one time trying to get off a lake with frozen drifts.
So I am probably not answering your question directly , but Ski flying is likely the most dangerous but it actually seams the safest! I landed one time in my Super Cub to shoot a big black wolf , when I touched down I realized the spot I had picked had ALOT more snow than I thought and I tried to just add full power and pull up but I had settled in tooooo far. That snow was so deep the tail of the plane was not visible when we came to a stop , I had to shovel for hours and snowshoe till dark to get ready to try to takeoff. Spent he nite in the plane and finally got the hel! out of there the next morning after daylight! No I did NOT get that wolf!

 

[Thankful Otter]

thanks Guy and good luck on future draws

thank Earle, yes without a doubt ski landings are always interesting, but we do it a lot. Another thing that surprises and makes newcomers a little nervous is when they see an abandoned wrecked airplane

I am sure their are other flyers here, what is your favorite or least favorite, ski, float or wheels, --

 

[Europe]

Cheyenne and Earle

This is going to come as a shock to you two but not a lot of us have a plane in our back yard. Plus, I never was to good at skiing, so have no desire to try it in a plane. I have had a few uneventful float landings in Alaska and a few uneventful wheel landings in Africa, but I was never the pilot.

When someone sees a wrecked and abandoned airplane on the ground, I can almost hear Cheyenne tell them, "that was the plane I flew before this one". I am sure Earle would not be that mean.

But Cheyenne and Earle has brought up a fun topic----who has had an interesting experience involving a bush plane when hunting that they would like to share with us ?

 

[35 Whelen]

Yes the old abandoned wrecks................ now of course Alaska is loaded with wrecks but a lot of us have streached the truth to scare "townies" when they would ask if I noticed the wreck as we were flying in and my standard answer was always [of course this was NOT true] yea I knew those guys, funny thing is we never found them that fall , so they were there all winter , of course their eyes would get big , and then you could seal the deal by saying , yea and by the time we got to them there was no sign of them at all as the bears and wolves had cleaned up everything except a wristwatch or boots or............................. LoL.
That would really get them thinking!!!!