High Sierra: A Short Film

few places remain in the lower 48 where a pilot can truly explore with the intent to Pioneer new air strips in the wide open of the high desert east of the Sierra Nevada Backcountry playground lays in wait for explorers with an eye for the Untamed for the last 6 years pilot and Mountain guide Kevin Quinn has explored thousands of square miles of terrain around his home base of Lake Tahoe and has organized an annual flying at a nearby dry lake bed to welcome fellow like-minded pilots and show them some of the fun that can be had in the High Sierra Pretend We're real push Pilots or something what it what even is is that of course it doesn't work the staff of life like burning men for airplane junkies it's an event for everyone who's willing to breathe a little pad dust and campfire smoke to meet new people and to put their knowledge of density altitude to the test in the following minutes we'll follow Kevin and a small group of bush planes into several of these makeshift air strips from 4,000 all the way up to 9,000 ft above sea level and see just what it takes to push the edge of what is landable but what's important about this area that it's so much different from where you're used to you know it's not Idaho it's not Alaska it's not uh you know it's not Montana where you have these Backcountry airports that somebody's been maintaining for you um I think most everybody's got big tires if you have little tires um stick to the the dry light beds you know there's you might be able to get into a couple spots that that we talk about over here you know and we'll know in the air whether it's for you or not we'll just say this is a big tire or for everybody so to speak got to know your spot there's no go around in there your flyby uh as you come in for landing at your 12:00 there's no go around because of the big tailing wall behind you so you got to come across it from about a 4:00 to a 10:00 to have a look and what you're looking for is two big concrete blocks that if you run long you're going to run through the conrete blocks and the distance that you have is basically from me to the big tire right here and so you little less even so you run through these big concrete blocks but if you don't know where those concrete blocks are don't land there cuz they'll eat they'll ruin your day those 35s will Ru their day8 was thirsty and hisy was R Rass he wouldn't die only wheels turning really scar through the whole merch and guys land where the blue Mall lands that's the perfect spot right in front of the airplane don't land in the dark dark is danger land in the light stuff um there's some real nice patches on this North Shore of what I call this south portion of the reservoir down here you can kind of see the trees in the distance over there there's some real nice spots um we'll kind of play here A bunch probably take everybody over to uh three wagons and just between here and there if you want to play around the bowling alleys right here is around the corner you won't miss it like Big Sandy strip you'll think oh that looks entertaining that's it what are we going to call this one we've never been here before there's no name for it this is a No Name spot it's got to have something to do with stumps h the High boys down here that's where 12,000 foots are getting okay just keeps getting higher wish you want to up the an you know yeah nice job Highway Ridge so good so good I can't believe we got all these planes in here it's like a ski jump to send you out and be back a little bit because the road below you you'll see smooth and every now and then if I'm heavy I sink and I actually touch the me next Road a little bit and out but I don't like doing that it's spooky but just know that you're going to punch it you're going to hit your touchdown you'll see it it's a drop off and you know that's your jump you'll be airborne then nice nice is right

Channel: Backcountry Pilot

Views: 143,124

Keywords: aviation, flying, backcountry, bush pilot, cessna skywagon, super cub, high desert, STOL, high sierra

Id: I3n7i5Hrw6k

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 29 2014