BUSHPLANES over ALASKA | A Short Film

[Music] well it is that time of year again here in alaska long summer days that just don't end sunsets that go on forever and cheap half gas thanks russian iran and hey uh excuse me no not right now i'm trying to make a video over here could could you could you wait hey [Applause] so we had the usual suspects me and the bear hawk and stefan the 170 and as luck would have it we were in the area of paxton that weekend right where the cessna 180 185 flying was happening so we decided to crash the party and actually learned quite a bit about 180s and 185s that weekend one of those things we learned was that one in five skywaken pilots has an undiagnosed drinking problem but as it also turns out that's the same as the national average for all pilots so nothing new really there of course there was food drinks good friends and a whole lot of fun now per usual we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here before we actually got to pax and we had initially departed anchorage flew on up to palmer for the cheapest gas in the state and then down to birchwood before heading on out to the kinnick glacier for an awesome evening of airplane camping north bridgewood strong like a tree [Music] hope they won't shoot me down soon try to catch me all [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] to the very end [Music] you gotta raise a little [Music] will you find me [Music] when the sunrise [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] so yeah quite the flight out there to knick quite the place to camp for the evening luckily enough one of our friends was also able to join us nick brought a super cub out there and it really puts everything in perspective for you when you see him take off here and that 35 foot wingspan turns right out over the hills towards the ice and you get a feel for just how massive those chunks of ice are and how big the glacier is and how incredible and vast this valley is that we're in here right at the foot of the knick glacier just incredible place to camp for the evening to make things even better nick was down to go for a little flight and he and i put the bear hawk side by side next to each other doing a little comparison of who could take off shorter who could land shorter who could fly faster who could fly slower and that is in a whole separate video the link is in the description below this one if you want to see all the different specs for the pa 18 super cub and the bear hawk patrol and after our little comparison video we watched him disappear out into the beautiful sunset steph and i sat down by the fire for a little while longer stared at the icebergs and then went to sleep in this incredibly beautiful place waking up the next morning underneath the wings of our airplanes parked next to this massive glacier with this incredible view you just got the feeling that it was going to be a really good day to continue our trip flying out east [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] so i got the strip in sight right here to my left it's close to the river the edge of the river is it on the upper shelf or the lower shelf the upper shelf alright really bumpy i don't know do you want to stop there we don't have to it's got it's really bumpy i don't know i mean we could stop there if you want but that's a little bumpy for these tires you want to try the other one sure we can drag the other one or just do a little bounce and go yeah i know all right let's just go back i'm really low on fuel okay sounds good little uh tires and this gear is not really conducive for some of that stuff yeah fine doesn't break my heart after getting bounced out of those first two strips with these little tires just a little bit on the pumpy side for these little guys i couldn't resist the urge to go fly low along the river take in all the scenery stuff headed on over to the airport to top off with gas and then we made our way on up the matanuska river valley beautiful valley working on over towards the matanuska glacier first popping into a little gravel bar for a quick bathroom break thanks to the gopro for dying on approach so yeah we videoed the approach and videoed the take off not quite the landing but i assure you it was a 10 out of 10. there's no video evidence to suggest otherwise after that we continued on up the river valley absolutely breathtaking views working on up towards the mad news glacier with a final destination of sheep mountain lodge a cool little spot right on the side of the highway there that also happens to have their own little strip that you can land at great place highly recommend the food and the ginger cookies they have there [Music] [Music] uh [Music] 3500 over the total glacier landing sheep mountain [Music] all right ready for me to go first yep i'm on that one cool uh i'll land roll out and try to make a return off my room for you [Music] okay [Music] [Music] we enjoyed some good food really enjoyed that ginger cookie and then it was time for us to get back in the airplanes we had already burnt up quite a bit of daylight believe it or not it was already 7 30 pm and we were taking off out of sheep mountain heading over towards gulcana for our next fuel stop the train changes quite a bit in route there it opens up quite a bit more with a lot more green still very beautiful in its own way and the only thing ugly about that entire area really was just the fuel prices in volcano [Music] okay traffic flooded [Music] after a quick top off in gulkanda it was time for the last leg of day two the final leg of the day goalkanna to paxton where we're gonna be camping for the next few days it was a beautiful evening for a flight about nine pm when we finally got the wheels up flying over more pretty green scenery and over the trans-alaska pipeline that runs all the way from brutal bay down to valdez carrying about a half a million barrels of oil per day through that 48 inch wide pipe it really is quite a cool thing to see from the air carrying oil over 800 miles 600 some miles in a straight line it's a little zigzaggy so over 800 miles from prudo bay down to valdez about an 18-day journey to travel the full 800 miles through the pipe conveniently enough following the pipeline in the road northbound let us write two packs and for a nice swirly kinda windy end of the day good crosswind above the trees i don't know what's gonna be like below them where are you a little squirrely i probably landed with like a quartering tail lens mostly crosswind and then it just kind of goes away and gets burbly below the trees should i come in the other way yeah both ways suck i just land this way because it's an easier you know taxi the wind socks just tattered as hell and it's uh it's hanging fairly limp [Music] so yeah pretty swirly winds two bouncy landings nothing that a few cold beers can fix bottom line yeah steph and i it's not like every landing's pretty and that was definitely one of those times where it was a little bit swirly in there either way still a nice evening to settle in down by the fire throw back a few beers get some good sleep and by the next morning when we got out of our tent at the crack of noon seems like the whole 185 clan showed up and was ready to party [Applause] [Music] [Music] so steph being the lady that she is put in quiet mode for her take off very nice of her protect all her ears and the flight of six of us headed on out to go explore some gold mines out in the hills near paxton [Music] okay i'm heading up over the mountains as well um you're heading up over the hills then yeah the first trip that uh i was gonna check out just right in front of me here um at least from where i think it is okay and three's down rolling to the end [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] our first stopping place for the day was an active gold mine right near slate creek just east of the gacona glacier and quite a beautiful place to be out there all summer mining for gold in that valley just epic views lots of cool old equipment lying around took some pictures standing on top of weird rocks that looked like wood and before we knew it it was starting to rain and hail a little bit so it was time for us to blast out of there in search of better weather to our next stop a unimproved strip on the sectional chart just two valleys [Music] [Applause] over [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] where is everybody in proximity to the strip i'm just coming up overhead just north of the strip here at four thousand fair hawks about maybe two miles down over the strip going up river at uh 50 feet over the river i'm following stephanie around i'm about a quarter mile back behind her okay i'm going to land the strip here and i'm going up river it looks like that's uh what the windstock's dictating so i'm just overhead now and uh i'm gonna land it fairhawks crossing over the strip blow me number two [Music] and the unimproved strip actually turned out to be pretty nice actually a lot more improved than many other strips we go to in alaska that are on the sectional chart so pretty cool place room to park six airplanes no problem even the windsock turned out to be in a lot better shape than the windsock in paxson and last but not least juliet november showed up a little bit of backstory on this particular 185 steph has been eyeing this airplane for the last two years ever since she decided that well maybe it's time for her to move on from the 170 into something a little bit bigger and this one certainly has caught her eye in particular very shiny paint actually too shiny to be a bush plane lots of flashy lights and very decked out panel jimmy was actually a swell enough guy to let her take it up for a lap around the pattern while the rest of us just kind of stood around yes about airplanes and took in all the scenery staring up at the chistochina glacier [Music] and as steph and jimmy returned from their flight around the pattern they brought with them a little bit more rain and hail kind of seemed to be the theme of the flying every time we landed somewhere before we could even fire up and get back out of there it was raining and hailing some more so we all just kind of stood around for a few minutes figured probably not the best time to launch just trying to stay dry underneath the wings of the airplanes listening to those heavy raindrops and little ice pellets bounce off the wingskins adding just a little bit more character to each airplane before we all decided hey all this rain's making us a little bit thirsty time to hop back in fire up and work our way on back towards paxton finding a few gravel bars along the way and then kicking back alongside the fire trying to dry out from a rather wet day of flying [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so so a few more swirly landings and it was about that time for everyone to crack open a few cold ones and first priority was finding some firewood luckily no beer was spilt in the shoving over of that tree uh not really the smartest thing but it's not like things got any more intelligent from there the next task was lighting the big pile of wood that we just knocked over unfortunately even with an oil and gas engineer on hand no one could quite figure out the exact ratio of avgas to wood to actually make the big pile of wood and nav gas catch fire without causing serious bodily harm after about six seven maybe eight tries of that luckily there was some bald guy in uh orange shirt that will remain unnamed who came up with the brilliant idea of just add more gas and a lot more gas and pour it in a big line and then jump back and light that and that should work and luckily it did of course as the evening progressed the sun went down the mosquitoes came out and started attacking us things didn't get any more intelligent from there and i am so so sorry to report that there were multiple balsa wood airplanes harmed in the making of this video unfortunately uh there were no survivors among any of them but luckily somebody had the wherewithal throughout all that alcohol to set aside enough gasoline to be able to pour some into the gas tanks the next morning on the airplanes so we could go explore a little bit more in the hills just the east of paxson [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] so the fleet left paxton headed east into the hills to go explore some of the same places we were at the day before given the extensive academic research we did of those locations some of us decided to pop into the first mining strip and go for a hike others of us continued on to explore for new strips other places that may be available for landing some that might be closed by fuel drums so we couldn't land there not quite sure why looked like a great place to me but perhaps they just weren't eager to have any more visitors over there one group of us ventured out a little further east to another mining strip to go check it out [Music] one of us might have had minor mechanical difficulties nothing that couldn't be resolved by well looks like this part isn't really that necessary must be a spare part anyways just duct tape that back up and let's go fly some more [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] um and after blasting out of there steph and i ventured out on our own back to the unimproved strip a beautiful little runway just right there at the base of the just oceana glacier to break out the fat bikes and go explore around a little bit by land there was miles and miles of four-wheeler trails to ride around although some of it was just a little bit below the waterline still a ton of fun to stretch the legs a little bit after being in the airplanes for so many hours after a bike ride it was time to start thinking about heading back to seldovia to go back to work steph and i do have real jobs uh perhaps if we got more thumbs up and likes on the videos we wouldn't have to work real jobs but until then we'll keep our weekend outings to a maximum of four days at a time our trip home took us back through golcana for a fuel stop and then a little further south down to tonsina beautiful little town nestled right along the highway there with this super cool little russian lodge owned by a russian family very authentic russian food if you guys are ever in the area although the strip is not on the chart the town is and right where the richardson highway crosses the tonsina river you'll find about a thousand foot long grass strip that will lead you right to the front of the lodge really fun welcoming folks that were thrilled to see two airplanes show up given how dead the summer has been for everyone up here i think they were a little less thrilled when they only saw one person get out of each airplane but nonetheless everyone's always happy to have customers rather than none we had a great meal there and then loaded back up to continue westward towards a little bit better weather of course taking care of the airplanes first and making sure they got a good bath and then taking a small detour to sheet mountain lodge once again to grab one of steph's favorite cookies before finding our last destination of the weekend [Music] a nice soft muddy sandbar at an undisclosed location that might have been just a little bit too short but i think that's the story for another time for now we'll just have to chalk this up to another one of those very fun very beautiful a little bit dehydrating and perhaps even educational alaskan weekends [Music] [Music] you

Channel: FLY8MA.com Flight Training

Views: 96,971

Keywords: fly8ma, paxson, alaska, alaskan bush people, alaskan, alaskan summer, bushplanes, bushplane, cessna bush plane, cessna, bearhawk, cessna 185, takeoff, landing, cessna 170, c172, cessna 172, backcountry, backcountry camping, flying, aviation, airplanes, flying bushplanes, fly8ma.com, oshkosh, oshkosh fly in, flying cowboys, airport, airstrip, microsoft flight simulator 2020, flight simulator alaska, flight simulator alaska bush trip, flying in alaska

Id: LXKXaye1dHI

Length: 32min 30sec (1950 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 25 2020