Bush Plane Bloopers Part 2

We’ve all done embarrassing things, that’s a fact. Life has a way of keeping us all humble at one point or another. Pilots are a notoriously proud bunch and will make that evident most of the time, thus, a small piece of humble pie is on the menu at least a couple times a season. For me, I tend to eat a whole pie or two every season. This story takes place during the September Moose season out on the Yukon Delta.

I had just finished loading my three moose hunters, given my safety briefing and began our slow warm up and taxi out to our take-off position. I checked the weather via the Bethel Airport frequency, requested take-off clearance from Tower, and did my before takeoff checklist. Gas, make sure we are on the fullest tank, water rudders up, mixture full rich, propeller lever full forward, flaps set for take off, trims set, carburetor heat off, flap handle down, take off flow complete. I slowly began adding power. At full take-off power, you could feel all 450 horse power vibrating through the rudder pedals as we began plowing through the water. I glanced down at my engine instruments to verify all was well, and away we went. A text book take-off if you will. The flight was about 1 hour to get to the hunting location. The first 20 minutes or so of the flight are pretty boring as it mostly consists of just tundra, small ponds, and not much visible wildlife. The real action begins at about the 25-30 minute mark. This is when you start to enter Moose country, and you know it right away. This is the part where all hunters start to get very excited. Of course there were probably several hunting spots that were closer, but I wanted to make sure that the hunters had the best possible chance of bagging some big Yukon Moose. We try to focus more on a quality hunt verses a quantity hunt. Obviously making a living is very important to anyone, but our name and quality of service that goes with it is much more valuable. We want to be the best. Time went by fast as we were in the heart of Moose country and the Moose were out. Everywhere you looked, there were large bull Moose. You could hear the excitement in the voice of the hunters every time they saw a bull. I can’t lie, to this day I get excited every time I see a large bull Moose. I guess I had better feel that way, otherwise I might be in the wrong profession. Before they knew it, we were circling the lake that they were going to hunt. I had to circle to verify that there were no hunters with-in 1 1/2 mile of the drop location, as this is the rule established by Fish and Wildlife, and it’s a good rule. With the amount of money invested in these trips, hunters have an expectation that they are the only ones in that area, giving them the best opportunity to be successful. I totally agree and am happy for the rule. As I suspected and to my relief, there were no hunters on this particular lake and my passengers liked what they were seeing from the air. I began my cool down and did my pre-landing checklist. Another quick glance at the engine instruments and I was satisfied with what I seeing. I lined up for the final approach and everything was in order. The landing was uneventful followed by a nice slow taxi to the drop off point. As I beached the airplane nose first into the floating bog, I ran the floats up on top of the bog slightly to keep the airplane from floating away as we would unload it. I jumped off first and had all my passengers exit as well. After my last passenger was off the float, I pulled hard on the tight rope (wire going from float tip to float tip) to verify the airplane was beached good enough. I was satisfied with what I saw and felt, so I called it good. I had to go to see a man about a horse for a few minutes, and after that found myself in conversation with the hunters discussing some questions they had. After a few minutes of this, I directed my passengers back to the plane so we could unload all their gear as I had other drops that I needed to do that day. As I cleared the bushes and got a good view of the airplane, I immediately noticed that it was sideways, which was not the way I left it. Immediately I had a lump in my throat as something was not right. I naturally picked up my pace and as I got closer, I realized that it was in fact floating away. The wind had picked up, freed the floats from the floating bog, and slowly began drifting towards the middle of the lake. Luckily for me, there was a beaver lodge about 20 feet off shore that the airplane was slowly tumbling around before heading out to the abyss. This gave me a few minutes to formulate a plan. I’m going to stop right here for a second because if you think about it, there are several situations that might make this not that big of a deal, or that could be a huge a issue. It all depends on what is surrounding the lake, small rocks, boulders, high banks, cut banks, basically the list goes on and on. I took into consider my surroundings and immediately that the aircraft wasn’t in any real danger of damage, so that made me feel a little better of our current situation, however, I knew that no matter what, I was getting wet today. I narrowed it down to two plans. Walk around to the other side of the lake, either to the left or to the right, which both sides were cut off by a deep marsh or a slough and would take me probably an hour or two of hiking through some seriously think and nasty brush, or I could just jump in right now and swim the 20 or 30 feet to the airplane and be done with it. The choice was clear to me on what I had to do, so, I weighed my options with that particular choice. Do I just jump in with all my clothes on and fly home wet, (this is September by the way, it’s cold) or do I take everything off, be wet for a minute, then put dry clothes on and be warm for the hour flight home? I chose the later. I was already pretty embarrassed as I only have one job when I’m on the ground, and that to make sure my airplane is secure. Well I had already screwed that one up, so what’s a little extra embarrassment on the side? A little salt in the wound I suppose. At that point I didn’t really care, all I knew is that the longer I waited to make a decision, the longer I was going to have to swim to reach the airplane. Everything came off and into the water I dove. It only took a few seconds to reach the airplane, but let me tell you, that water was cold. As I dove in, I just had this weird feeling because that particular lake was filled with Pike and Beaver, and here I am, thrashing around right next to an active Beaver lodge, invading their territory, completely naked, and then of course Pike, which are highly attracted to thrashing and splashing, and I got some loose items hanging around, if you know what I mean. Well, I made it to the airplane with all my body parts, so that was a plus. I remember having this hilarious moment with myself as I was sitting in the seat of the airplane, soaking wet and stark naked. I was so annoyed and pissed off at myself for my stupidity, and in that little moment, for some reason, I just thought the whole thing was absolutely hilarious. Taxiing a float plane around naked, on a lake with the clients just sitting on the bank, awkwardly watching it all go down. Hey, I did learn a valuable lesson though. Always secure the airplane to shore with a rope, no matter what direction, if any, the wind is coming from.

Just the other day I was out flying and decided to fish a lake I had never been to. I landed and beached the airplane. The wind was blowing directly on the beach so I figured the airplane would be fine. No need to tie it down. As I was walking away, this story popped into my head. I immediately turned around, walked back to the airplane and tied it down. After fishing for about an hour, a storm rolled through and I high tailed it back to the airplane. As the airplane came into view, I noticed right away that the wind had shifted 180 degrees and that if I had not tied that airplane down, it would be in the middle of the lake, like right now. Alright! I gave myself a few pats on the back for that one!!

YEHAW!!