Beachhoppin' Bushwheel Birthday Bash | Alaska Flying

all right got rob here we just did our pre-flight and set up cameras we are going to go for a birthday beach bushwheel beachcombing bash something like that hopping around some islands some remote beaches so it's gonna be a really fun day did i say it's my birthday anyway i'm 35. kind of hard to believe but this is gonna be a lot of fun [Music] all right so who does the clear well it's my airplane i think it's uh pics okay do me proud oh i will i will do you proud had to get the body into that one yeah ready ready [Music] rob is a relatively new friend of mine that i met recently that has dove headfirst in the aviation so he got his mechanic license his a p concurrently and and right after got his private pilot license he bought a plane around that time he got a job above the arctic circle where he works as a mechanic during the summer months and he dubs himself bush pilot in training for being just over 250 hours he's got some awesome skills which you'll see throughout this video that i think is unbecoming of someone at that hour level but he's great rob wanted to set down just a few minutes from homer so this would be good practice before we got into the really critical areas and tighter spots later on in the day as we moved deeper into the mountains just for giggles let's go ahead and uh spring creek real quick okay before we go that way we'll go buzz at first once i haven't been there in a week or two first we just do a low pass to check the condition of the strip [Music] now we'll do a slam and go [Music] last he's all dialed in and we set down and taxi back so there's a really cool i don't know if you've been here before but so this is good up to like a positive 18 time wow still long enough i don't think i'd want to walk on the flats because it's water all the way around you but on a lower tide like this you can walk across and there's this little islander trees and on the other side there's an island and trees like one car garage sized island of trees wow and in the middle of it somebody's cleared or maybe naturally it was cleared and it's perfect size for a tent wow yeah it's a really cool spot i guess it's a lot of people [Music] well there's enough bears out that if we don't see at least one black bear somewhere we're not low enough funny he should say that stay tuned for the bears later on our eventual goal is to get to the other side of the mountains where the beaches of the pacific ocean will become our playground in typical alaska fashion the day looks perfect in homer but looks a bit more foreboding as we climb up and have a look on the other side yeah over there now the challenge started to become this overcast layer that would prevent us from getting down into the area we want to be in find a hole and circle down through it well there are big mountains there well what if we get stuck after we do that also loitering over the clouds where we don't have a visual option just in case we had an engine out is also something else to think about so lots of things that we're weighing here we should have a clear way in and clear options out if not it's time to go back home first we can always go around the outside we know we've got plenty there [Music] rob and i came up with the solution to go to a clear spot uh in this place called windy bay and an area where i'm familiar with and its lower terrain and features this would allow us to descend below the overcast layer have a clear area to work with and and some room to maneuver around as you can see now things have opened up quite a bit with a healthy ceiling so we will proceed and see how things shape up [Music] salad a cup very cool well we found the bears in the green okay oh no there's another wow so [Applause] new spot the tide can really come in though yeah i believe it you can see it and it is coming in not going out wow what a cool spot really cool sadly over here there's no place to get away from the tide you know you come here play for a few hours you can wait through and it gets somewhere but where are you gonna put the airplane right true now our whole day would be filled with thoughts and planning for tides since the water rises and drops throughout the day a great landing spot now can become feet of water later on all right you ready i think so great just after blasting off the perfect alaskan moment happens a few bald eagles peel off the tree just a handful of feet away from us our joy is evident how cool is that man i love it it's really fun when you take off and you don't realize there's bears in front of you and they try to paw your airplane it's happened a couple of times because you're on a beach and you're hanging out having lunch you go to take off and you go over a little ridge and he's on the other side of the ridge and he surprises you you surprise him now we have the challenge of needing to get high enough to see if this cloud layer was consistent and also if we could climb high enough for a safe gliding distance across a larger opening of water but the layer was thin enough that everything worked out and we could continue to our next landing location so you can see that we never really buy ourselves into or get ourselves too deep into a situation that we can't get out of we always want those options to get back now we're coming up on a shipwreck we heard about between the mainland and this point out at the end yeah there's a shipwreck now rob sets up for a landing on this beach which is actually super long and doable by many airplanes now that's not that you have blanket permission to give it a shot landing in areas like this demands a lot of respect skill and practice let alone insurance [Music] we're getting out yeah though okay good get out scrub spike dude it feels so good to just be in the middle of nowhere rob did a great job hang on we got an advertisement here the far north fly fly-in bettles alaska if you're in the neighborhood stop by july 25th or the weekend of flower bomb drop and i haven't advertised this yet nobody knows it there's three five-gallon buckets of used aviation spark plugs so we're gonna have a spark plug count guesstimate how many spark plugs are in it okay and if you have to be there to be present to win that's the verge they use and whoever wins will get some brooks range aviation swag sweet worth the trip now we're gonna go beachcombing and see uh if we can find any treasures the ocean obviously has a lot of garbage and different stuff so things will wash up and they'll catch currents from even japan and come up here so we're going to look around a little bit see what we can find oh no no way it doesn't have much pressure in it should we try it yes i'll try it is it just seawater oh no it tastes like a pepsi what it's okay it's a little flat but it's not bad got a little dirt in it how is that even possible right that's drinkable except it's pepsi well yeah there's that so here's some japanese garbage told you so do you want to try to taste that not really okay we're finding treasures this is one of my birthday presents that's cool i'll take that i wish i mean it says n-uk i think that's japanese i think it is too i think you just found your kids a present heck yeah this is a lot of fun just combing the beach i think i'm in my element i think rob is in his element [Music] rob went on a little hike and i'm just here alone on the beach listening to the waves and just feeling really grateful to be 35 and alive and happy and well and successful especially in my family [Music] just good vibes all around good place to be good place to think about life and where i've been and where i'm going i don't know if i have much more to say than that just really grateful for being here really grateful for all that i have and all that i get to do and very much look forward to the future as well i know that 35 is just the beginning and i've got even more in store fiddle firing i'll take it oh i got it got it yeah you think there's butter on this thing never had any anything but natural but i like it those are a little earthy over here a little bit so how was your hike it's good found a cool rock nice it's got cool texture to it all right couldn't really see the airplane the trees are too tall i wasn't i didn't oh yeah too high sorry all right well upward and onward i wanna go fly okay before heading to the next spot it's time for some epic pattern work [Music] now rob and i would blast off on our way to the next spot watch chris palmer's skills as he enters the 1954 piper pacer so far so good yeah buddy perfect ready yep [Music] oh so we have to cross here yeah cause that's an island we're going right there let's see what it looks like around the corner rob and i are having a bit of a back and forth about the water crossing because we wanted to make sure we could get a higher ceiling or be able to climb higher so that we could have gliding distance to either shoreline if not we'd have to go back the other way but it just so happened that things started to open up again to where we could climb and get across to where we needed to go there's such a huge playground over here nobody knows about it and it's right here it's not even like known in alaska no well and what scares a lot of people off i think is the legality of coming to places for doing this yeah but it literally says saltwater beaches yeah and if you wanted like i did you go find your local enforcement guy for the park and say hey this is what's up this is what i want to do and you should have a good rapport with them anyway i'd rather know him in a good sense than meet him on a beach somewhere that i fit in the bed and getting myself in trouble right you know we alaskans really want to take care of our pristine wilderness and we love to see it and explore it as well it's really important to do so responsibly so we wanted to make sure we did that with the airplane as well landing off airport without a weather station it's important to check out the landing location before fully committing or you could even call it like a clearing approach or an intel gathering pass we just wanted to make sure that nothing was there and it turns out that actually something was there there's something on the beach over there a couple of eagles scare them out of the way there three four five baby six oh yeah i see him seven that's awesome wow i wanted to come here and hunt and that just solidified me [Music] so gosh that's so cool we've seen almost three dozen bears now oh man is that cool or one way too cool everything is cool everything is awesome i love it this is exactly why i got my pilot's license [Music] we've been trudging around trying to find bears of course now we're trudging before we're kind of being quiet but now we're going to find our way back to the plane and head back home [Music] so we're doing a little bit of beach combing here only got a few minutes left so one of the reasons is the tides come in and we'll run out of beach so tights come in less beach tides go out more beach and we're kind of getting on the edge now where we need to start thinking about heading out um yeah so a couple more minutes of treasures and we'll bomb out of here oh you found one yeah yeah butterfingers just a big old barnacle nice they got cool shapes and colors and things okay we're watching this sink down whoa kind of gushy whoa yeah look i shouldn't do that let me go wash off my foot hours later rob would text me saying he thought to himself why did we have to yell clearer if we were in the middle of nowhere the thought made me laugh out loud for sure just the thought of us in the middle of nowhere yelling clear for no reason brought some good laughs completely unnecessary somewhere out there there are some startled bears for sure [Music] the middle of nowhere is exactly where i wanted to be on my birthday and truthfully as i have pushed into my 30s birthdays just aren't that big of a deal anymore but this year i thought why not treat myself to something great and flying in the wilderness with my friend rob was what i really wanted it kind of the the opportunity presented itself and i thought why not so um you know i got much more than i bargained for ended up being a fantastic morning alaska is certainly wild even here really not far from where we live we struck out on this adventure together we were all alone and got a few quiet moments amidst all the chaos that's been going on recently in society it's just a reminder that aviation can unlock the incredible every day is a special day especially a birthday and there's even greater meaning in sharing this flying journey with a friend oh that was awesome oh that was so fun what a day what a day what a day today thanks for coming thanks for having me yeah man happy birthday thank you i think everybody's birthday should be as fun as that yeah atlas that was out of this world that was that made it already one of the better birthdays ever more adventures to come with rob maybe even above the arctic circle at bush pilot in training there you go instagram at bush pilot and training so uh make sure to like as always comment your favorite part of this video and subscribe if you will and we'll see you next time throttle on what do you say i don't have a thank you i need a thing okay i need a thing all right see you later everyone [Music] [Music]

Channel: Angle of Attack

Views: 103,703

Rating: 4.955915 out of 5

Keywords: flying, aviation, alaska, pilot life, pilot career, flight vlog, vlog, airplane, pilot vlog, aircraft, landing, flying video, flying vlog, bush flying, bushwheels, flight, pilot, flight vlog pilot, backcountry flying, pilot vlog youtube, pilot vlogs, flight training, beach landing, piper pacer, STOL, flightchops, flight chops

Id: qWhZwatiBzE

Length: 22min 58sec (1378 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 09 2020