Float Flying with Sarah - Alaska Backcountry | Alaska: Part 9

all right water runners are dude big all the way back any of that full throttle [Music] just find that sweet spot of a step and I'll help you speed up the fastest right about here it looks really good do a little back pressure it's really good use of the train to our advantage find it out over the water as much as we can [Music] wasn't just going [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] I've been in Alaska for about two weeks now visiting my buddy Chris from angle-of-attack we've done a ton of flying all over the south-central part of Alaska and I've seen some amazing sights along the way this is part 9 of this 12 part Alaska series so if you haven't seen one through eight check out the playlist if you want to watch it from the beginning we're back in Talkeetna Alaska to flight school called Alaska floats and skis the operation here is nothing short of fantastic with top-notch flight instructors like Sara who love what they do and there's even on-site lodging for when you're here doing your training Chris and I are on our way north to the remote village of Bettles about 35 miles north of the Arctic Circle and that will be covered in a later part one of our stops along the way northbound is Talkeetna and we wanted to take advantage of our time here in part eight we flew up the Ruth glacier into Denali National Park and the views quite literally left us speechless this is the next morning after a night's rest in the lodge and a cup of coffee I'm gonna go take my first seaplane lesson with Sara I have zero seaplane time so sara is gonna walk me through some of the key tasks of operating a seaplane in different scenarios or in our case this 1958 piper pacer on floats welcome to part 9 [Music] I've been in a floatplane once but we didn't touch water so it's a float fine it's all visual a lot of float flying is just looking at the Colleen and you're counting in reference to the horizon that's all you care about a lot of the time it's like we talked about it's all in the relation yeah you want to be sitting high so that you can see the cows but I don't want my head through the ceiling yeah okay so my parents are both pilots I just grew up flying I got my license in about seventeen and started flying floats when I was 18 got about $600 now about half of that is on floats so CF I got my multi commercial and then I actually got my seaplane commercial first and then did my land add-on later so this is a piper pacer it's 150 horsepower engine in it there airplanes if you know how to fly them but they do have a reputation for being a little challenging they're pretty ya gotta be paying a lot of attention to the rudder on these things especially on flow okay so we just did a little bit of a ground lesson I think I understood all the terms we'll see how it goes it's it's absolutely beautiful morning to fly it's about sixty degrees scattered 6,000 is what the the weather was saying at Talkeetna but it's it's clear skies the wind is calm we might deal with some glassy water this morning according to Sarah so that might add a little bit of a challenge for an introductory float lesson but it's gonna be good the weather is phenomenal we're about to saddle up this pacer and head out on the lake all right clear good [Music] Ector check clear okay so don't think about the safe plan now that we're waiting for to run up a little bit so all the planes that we have have these Garmin trackers in here if we need to send an SOS signal you gotta open this tab here press a button for three seconds it'll ask you to confirm that first message if you don't confirm it it'll still set and that just said that little ping of our location about every five minutes back to the office here gotcha so very glossy water today yeah all right airplane yeah I mean it's it's if I head it's like the brakes I feel like free correct if you have something else that you want to use you can't no not really okay let's see great correct of eyes instruments so we said our altimeter for field elevation here it's about 375 G is for gas and we have fuel selectors everybody left knee elbows your attitude your trim is up here on the ceiling we've got if there was a good amount of wind we always want to do a run up into the winds just like calm out we can do it we'll just keep heading this direction whenever you're bringing up the speed we're gonna bring the stick all the way back into our lap just hope to protect the prop from any of water damage gotcha and then 1615 and watch this nose right as he ran up watch how it goes The Horizon up Tillie I'm about big tree line in this plane yeah so God you look outside that's what you want to see on land in ok you don't want to see any water in front of you you don't want to see the ground you guys don't want to be about half tree line yeah yeah ok that makes sense all right so let's check the bags that feels good back to both and the right feels get it back to bed I repeat responds well good recovery anything else it's scary okay so over here on the Seneca Lake we're gonna do a step taxi back over to that ad for take God the win that there is is kind of coming that way in but so before we take off we want to check fuel flaps so we bring in a notch of flaps for subtext agent in case hello time step taxi is turning to take off so well how does that this list if you go full that's the full left rudder deflection down there a dispenser like tight circles that oh yeah perfect and so this is kind of our way to like hold short at the end of the runway these tight circles you're not using at the end of it like turn around start acting back way that way while you're messing with stuff you burn up a lot of useful like Lucifer we're looking at a panel making sure everything's good for takeoff to clear the area before you do anything so this powder water you know come across the lake that we didn't see to potassium let's play the whole time gotcha so we've cleared the area the last thing we want to do is pick the water rotors up and then after we will do one more chance so people water is up right about here and then the rest of that the turn will keep coming in just cool it's so difficult for us we'll keep us coming around and then you want to bring the throttle full starting about here so you don't want to let it straight now once you make those water others up if you try to straight now there's nothing in the water you're gonna keep my spinnin air I need some authority over the rudder yeah I'll get a little air flow else take it Authority see the last thing we do is want to get it up stick back throttle full and then we'll see that first drive second risible ditch was a part of the step yep and I guess we leave the window open huh that's right let's make sure that sticks all right back in your lap yeah break the power back she's good this is a step taxi gotcha and if you use the letters a little bit you can see the kind of turn authority you have on the step not just a pretty stable position yeah a seaplane to be at once you straight to it step turns all the way around us Oh stow it it's a really uncoordinated this end but yeah much more stable for the seaplane to be a man in a plow and so when you're taking off you just you're in this attitude looking at this view on the horizon that's very uncoordinated that feels weird yeah we're just kind of skidding up that low it's that goofy yep so to come off the step now that we're done with this corneria stick all the way back paddle all the way back that just let it kind of slide off the step once it's fully falling off the step then he can pick those water utters back down that's cool yeah so for your takeoff you're gonna do the exact same thing you're just gonna keep the throttle and then we're going to go back into this Cove here we're gonna come to the far corner kind of get above the stuff that do a small step turn around the corner here at the strait note and that's gonna be with the rudders up brothers about you good morning Talkeetna radio Kayseri on to Syria today I'll be taking off from Kristensen to the north with alpha - Sierra tango thank you so we have our nacho flops Arabic shooters rich everything else looks good for takeoff the last thing we have to do is the water utters I guess about what we're pointed at that dock yeah that'll be perfect all right router water runners or food dig all the way back in here that full throttle [Music] just find that sweet spot of a step and I'll help you speed up the fastest rate about here it looks really good do a little back pressure that is down again perfect it's really good these are the train to our advantage find it out over the water as much as we can today I felt very graceful very nice oh it's the bellies up this mornin Mustang though the haze we've got from the fires yeah it's not there yeah we'll just find out - airport so we found your left we're just gonna kind of cross over ahead towards the river gotcha very good as well is he feel comfortable over the river anyone a decent us chance can I like like you are you gonna be doing at the pattern and really get a feel for ona we put the rudder both ways if you roll in and roll out four times you gonna lead with the rudder and it's really nice late-late attention to the rudder it's constantly attention to the readies I've kind of figuring out yeah yeah that was too much right there but I do about 500 I have so you need to get it for beta that if you choose that here to bait up to about 25 when we're done here clamp about to they want their speech their friends on here [Music] well I like how cool it's already starting to feel better about it but just like breathing oh the rudder yeah yeah I think that's my hardest part about flying this thing this really keep the net coordinated because it is you have to always be on us but yet be really late is that just Pacers or is not all seaplanes off you playing there like that cases I like this one wheel you put a face on clothes and it it works pretty talent yeah but also claims they have that huge surface area that makes it very longitudinally unstable because there's nothing in the back kind of balance out that huge surface area but down so they tend to be pretty hard to keep coordinators I make sense some of our folk playing some of the trophy I'm at a loss that kind of balances out the surface area but they're still pretty talented a little bit of texture not quite about yeah we'll see it's really pretty cool right my favorite part about profile is you get so much more in tune with the wins bush-league us you can see bodies of went little bit towards the as you're coming in to land on final which is really cool you could say that just to pay it being with good jobs and also realize yeah like here you can see you know it's a little bit of texture down at the set but pretty gracias will be so good actually we've ampitheatre that 11 food that's a bird some swabs or some cut down here that we don't really want to scare if we can help it stay to the left side of although we also look at mostly for the Train both on our approach and and our potential departure and if you're doing a go-around out of here every time you come into a lake you want to pick a go-around point and really analyze the train that you're gonna be had been to this is a pretty forgiving lake got this nice beautiful meadow out here that we can come in over that puts the other end they've got some clearance of the trees that we can climb out to but there's a little more you know a little bit more stuff down man is that kind of a hill overview if the winds were a little stronger we might get somewhere down ass up that's over those hills but that looks pretty calm comfortable yeah I'm ready done yeah big rock you ready like a race down where there's a nice one final to set up to this yeah you can bring in advance of pops up down as well and just let me know what do you think it's a good time to turn face sounds good thanks father ready to get used to that yeah I had it about landing at ease easy to like lose it here okay it's down bring it then all right so we could be kind of towards the left of those trees that look good to you yeah that looks really good that's so just nice stabilized approach after here it's really nice a special position of trees down at this side we want to set our landing attitude before we cross over you want to be ready to land the second we're over water I just slipped down a little bit more and then we go flap second notch of flaps just one that's a flower okay as you can reduce the power yeah how much all the way back and that Bank keep coming keep coming in and bring the nose up to the landing attitude that we saw earlier I bring that power back after about two thousand and then you just look at her nose and a hole of that power setting keep your weights nice above all maybe glancing at your BSI I just hold my follower down a little more power and more power yeah perfect hold it follow it out at mastic back bottle back either of the water perfect awesome I didn't try glancing out the window once and I was like nope that's groovy yeah yeah if I was coming in here it definitely is a glassy water land in it's not like purely purely glassy but it is still very reflective yeah and we're going through a little beach up here it's kind of grown over a little bit but it's nice and sandy when we come with the beat we need our waters down so that we can steer over towards it but once we're coming in about to approach the beach you want to bring those out so we don't damage them but you just got to kind of judge when to pull the mix chance that you'll come in not too hard but not too soft yeah all right but here I'd pull the mix s awkward there that's one [Music] bring those writers up that was a I guess a glassy water landing that was I was watching the vs I most of the vs I been looking out the window checking the rpm making sure my power was kind of roughly in the right spot and then looking out and I could feel the very gentle descent so I guess the trick is to just be patient for the glassy water landing don't be like okay time to land you know so that was cool it was really really cool totally different experience and it's cool that we actually got to Beach it and get out that's that's really neat so how far from Tokyo are we oh about 30 miles round Mountain frequency Ventura at this lake so I gotcha gotcha very cool well so far I'm loving it it's awesome absolutely awesome [Music] [Music] [Music] this is just the first of two remote Lakes Sarah wanted to show me and I'm already having a borderline spiritual experience I spent pretty much the rest of this day trying to wrap my head around the fact that we just flew this little seaplane to a lake in the middle of nowhere and witnessed a moose going for a swim with Denali in the background I needed just a minute to let that sink in we pushed off from the shore started up and took off out of Swan Lake to head up into the mountains Sara knows of a lake that introduces some extra challenges and she wants me to experience a confined area landing and takeoff area this lake in particular so it's got like a long enough section Atlanta but the approach has another figure of the lake that kind of curves around and all around it is really high rising terrain but it approach the lake you want to come in over the water but stay high enough and not touch down until you straighten out gotcha and so you kind of have to get over over the water in order to get low enough to make the glassy water if I could find area but you want to stay high enough you want to have visual references on both sides they still have an idea about my yachting gotcha well there's definite text Java played but it affected the caramel and if you wanna follow and enjoy yeah I think um again yeah definitely Shaolin that if yeah pretty sure the ripples are going that way yep that works that right but if you want you can send us a good downwind come around the lab where yourself down at this lake in particular you really want to use the train to your advantage by the trains to find like a square powder and the mixtures like I said you're gonna cruise around the scent of the lake for the Train and not get to release don't want to say about ten feet or so off the water at please straight now okay then it's peace of mind romance plane you want to come in towards the water by street-level but really find that landing attitude are you talking about - he's straight now the owner they have to be straight now yeah but you can see with the tray in here right side to come straight up it's pretty steep the side that is I'll start to sweat not a little bit here my pub that's all the way back nice and slow I keep coming towards the water once you have an altitude that you like you can bring that power back in okay I just kind of hold it off right about here until we straighten out a little more power and now keep coming down towards the water you flip that landing attitude bring in a little more power to kind of soften up ballet I mean what's you straighten out perfect that stick back to battle back perfect plenty of rake but that was a really cool approach foot brown will do a confined area to take off from here make sure you keep it below a thousand we're out of the water here idle taxi in and we'll just do an idle taxi bag and lakes in a narrow like this if you try to do a step taxi back the take off it's not only enough room for your week to dissipate it kind of just like some really weird stuff going on and your take off run you see there that was a really cool approach so that that bouncing that we got that my improper attitude I think I was a little nose high put just a hair nose high so kind of the heels of the floats kind of hit that water it starts to skip a little bit and when you're first starting off on floats out much rather see that the Fiat knows well that's why I kind of let you do that I feel bad because it is when your nose high like you saw you get a little skip it's a little uncomfortable but it's not dangerous as long as you keep that nose up trying it's dangerous when you let that nose job the front of the floats dig and that's when it's that's the sensation if you just look little chain nose well you can get up on your toes it kind of like grabs you and pulls you to a stop it's a very uncomfortable feeling God should feel bad that's any no that's not the attitude you want to be out when you're at in yeah this is a really cool take off front - because we want to use up as much like as possible it's just good pretty narrow pretty shallow towards the in here and it's just like a planting you don't want to touch down while you're still an attorney you don't want to take off what you're still on a turn we're gonna go full power get up on the step and then we're gonna reduce the power and just do a step taxi around the corner once we have that turn made then we're gonna bring full power and and take off but you really want to be nice and established straightened out that's what does not have as much turn clearance it's the plane I usually fly yeah all right water runner-up let go all the way back [Music] good automation established on the steps and then reduce your power perfect that works out way better history from oh that's his you can see on that land and the texture of the water yeah and it gives it a little bit of grip on the flows and here we go did full power pick up straight ahead takeoff power set and I hold it right here let it by itself uh I don't really think how much is accelerate yeah when you break water [Music] my father for miners really is balanced ances huge differences a drag for the water at the air right I'm over to the left side of this canyon he does about flying up here a little bit yeah I got one side give yourself room to turn around this really introduced me to like traffic p30 there is one to the north one thousand one hundred to be over flying landing to the West Christian Sun but tell me how to see it tell me what you think that me approach this week so that's part of the Lakers class you wanna see there's a little bit of texture of this side and closer this sure so that would tell me that the width is probably coming out of the West though yeah maybe a little Ridgeline right here it's not a bunch of turf so there's just lots of trees then we got the road back over there so we'll check out what's going on here and then we'll hobos kind of set up for a left downwind snake there here do you want to land this way for others it's really important that you want to try to get as close to water as possible so even though that way we'd give us the greatest length too late or well if there's a train right there this train and it's like a razor train with trees at the end so the glasses I typically cover for the Westerner here it was channel cuz they've got really close visual orifices on both sides of you and you can use that island out there as you go I bet you're learning attitude gotcha all right water rudder is up [Music] there are at the white art they stand the defense with two different landing attitudes you come in on you to defend land and so you have a pretty good idea at this point it's a really fine line between too high too low right so I wanted out a little higher safer but your first class is perfect okay that gave me unnecessary confidence this way yourself down and get down really low really low I'd bring the power pretty much died at all and you want to follow The Cove kind of around you want to get down through the trees really work with the train around today okay and I keep it covered down keep coming down we have a visual reference off our right side here it becoming douse to have visual reference here we set our landing attitude bring my power back in now I just hold that's perfect but you really have to bring that power in yeah I just add enough yeah as soon as you slip out landing attitude you've got pretty high angle of attack and he lose a lot of left real quick yeah I immediately noticed that and I was like oh well that's good you need it like during training easy to screw up a LAN this is the hard part docking and docking yeah this is the hardest part of the whole fight for sure yeah once we get on the deck we'll kind of talk about that land and talk about it a little more ya know for docking if we road is down when I come in at a pretty low speed just like a be change the timing of point the mixture is really important and it looks like we're gonna come right back into the spot that we're at before I think [Music] please know that like over here tapping the brakes the first two landings were okay that last one was garbage 100% because of my wrongdoing that's right you got to stay humble right we got a purposely mess up a landing of course so absolutely awesome went up did some glassy water stuff low flying over the river low 500 feet and then and then did a confront was that considered confined at pineapple moon yeah okay so it confined confined area landing and then takeoff and then the just the terrain was awesome up there around the lake very cool sight picture coming down into it and then leaving but I'm hooked you gonna be here and like okay all right plan to finish me up oh yeah we beached at Swan Lake and got out of the airplane and a moose just walks out of the tree and I was like man where's my camera as I left the other handheld here so I'll be that clip that I took your the beach I'd been there like a week ago and there was bear tracks all over that beach last time I was there so I heard the wrestling and I was like okay now yes just a moose he kind of walked out looked at us like all right and then he walked he walked out in the water and was eating stuff and then we fired up the air turn the airplane around fired it up and he just kind of like looked up chewing and then went back to what he was doing I appreciate your instruction I was very insightful I pretty much understood everything you were explaining applying it as a different thing but yeah I mean I everything seems pretty intuitive there's a couple things like muscle memory things and I could tell that I was definitely falling prey to like trying to juice the throttle on the taxi on the idle taxi and stuff and then what else flaring like I still was trying to flare even on that one and it was just like to me I was I knew I needed to add power even thought about it I was like I need to add power but it was like muscle memory wasn't letting me do it so yeah it's just stuff that takes practice yes it surprises people how much powder they sub that land attitude and they bring that power and it's always just not quite enough right as soon as you set that attitude you start falling pretty quick right that's exactly what happened on that one I just didn't add nearly enough power so on a confined area landing you want to use full flaps but here we didn't because it was glassing so on a glassy landing you want to use notch one in this airplane and that's it yeah well I appreciate it though that was a blast I'm hooked now now I'm I've got a finish right flying a seaplane presents a whole new world of challenges that we don't even have to consider on wheels Chris and I were only here for the morning so we can't stick around all day otherwise I would have planned to just finish up the training with Sarah but I'll be back soon enough I'm hooked Sarah's instruction was incredibly insightful in the overall way she instructs is very laid-back yet effective so I'll certainly be seeking the remainder of my instruction with her when I returned to Alaska in part 10 Chris and I will continue our journey north to the remote village of Bettles but we need a pit stop for lunch and PB&J sandwiches in the middle of nowhere sounds good to us subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss that one if you like this video definitely give it a like and comment down below and if you'd like to support this channel you can shop merch and gear at aviation 101.com slash store until next time I want you to stay happy stay healthy stay current but most importantly stay proficient we'll see you in part 10 fly safe [Music]

Channel: Aviation101

Views: 663,084

Rating: 4.9493136 out of 5

Keywords: flying, seaplane, alaska, cfi, sarah, piper pacer, stol, float flying, float plane, glassy water, alaska floats and skis, don lee, talkeetna, flight, training, cessna, 172, cessna 172, skyhawk, n2423u, seldovia, short, runway, gravel, mountain flying, flight vlog, angle of attack, aviation, general aviation, aviation101, private pilot, landing, takeoff, atc, air traffic control, intercom, audio, recording, hd, 4k, cinematic, pilot, pilot life, pilot vlog, paho, homer, vfr

Id: UBpwxojSBJE

Length: 36min 58sec (2218 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 12 2019