AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
While assigned to the Dahl Creek, AK airport as station manager, state airport manager and maintenance, power operator, sanitation engineer, builder of log cabin, mechanic and licensed weather observer, things could get interesting at times. When living in the bush in a one person (family) operation, a person has to do everything just to get by. Our kids were the official passenger greaters since we used our home as the passenger terminal. Only thing I didn't do was hunt wild game although I always carried a .357 or 30.06 at all times when away from the airport, especially on our snow machine.
We had a small problem one day, an inflight fire with a C-185.
The aircraft was a company aircraft assigned to me and used as the emergency aircraft for Kennicott Copper at their Bornite copper operation where it stayed most of the time but I did use it on some scheduled flights when needed as a backup. This was in the Gates of the Arctic as it is called now and mentioned elsewhere before. God's back yard I call the area. Gee, it was nice to have your own C-185 with pilot to fly across a mountain to do laundry or join the Kennicott project manager and his wife for dinner.
Anyway, on one trip with one passenger from Shungnak, half way through a pass between Dahl Creek and Bornite, the engine really started running rough. The pilot, who later became a manager with the Fairbanks News-Minor Newspaper, pulled the power back to get the smoothest setting. The pass was not really wide enough to make a 180 and no place to land so he chose to continue since he knew the area very well. He got through the pass and was on letdown into the private Bornite airport when the engine really started bucking and all of a sudden, lots of light colored smoke smoke. Very soon, there were flames under the panel. He was about halfway on the downwind leg when the engine flat quit. He kind of stood it on a wingtip and made a 180 but there was a big snow berm he had to get over. Just before reaching it, he dropped full flaps and the ship rose enough to clear (thank goodness he was light) but one wheel ski did leave a mark in the berm and of course it was through flying immediately. He got it stopped OK, they got out in a hurry and than he grabbed the fire extinguisher and put the fire out. It was found that a fuel line had broken and it was raw gas that was burning until it got inside and than it was all the instruments and radios that were burning.
The company sent two mechanics out to get it ready to ferry to Fairbanks. The windscreen had melted, there were no gauges or radios for that ferry flight so what a trip that must have been. Kind of like an open cockpit ship.
The C-185 was replaced with a Beaver which the pilot really liked. I talked to the passenger, a friend of mine, and he said the pilot was so calm and cool it was unbelievable. Just a normal landing like he was used to.
On a business trip to Fairbanks later, I stopped by the hanger to see how the rebuild was going and saw 7 people working on it. Great right?? Read on. After finishing up my work, I went over to the ship to see how it was going and come to find out, they had the radio tuned in to a baseball game and no one was working. The VP of maintenance heard about that of course. Steven, hope that your grandfather was not one of those 7. He would have been working there at the time.
We had a small problem one day, an inflight fire with a C-185.
The aircraft was a company aircraft assigned to me and used as the emergency aircraft for Kennicott Copper at their Bornite copper operation where it stayed most of the time but I did use it on some scheduled flights when needed as a backup. This was in the Gates of the Arctic as it is called now and mentioned elsewhere before. God's back yard I call the area. Gee, it was nice to have your own C-185 with pilot to fly across a mountain to do laundry or join the Kennicott project manager and his wife for dinner.
Anyway, on one trip with one passenger from Shungnak, half way through a pass between Dahl Creek and Bornite, the engine really started running rough. The pilot, who later became a manager with the Fairbanks News-Minor Newspaper, pulled the power back to get the smoothest setting. The pass was not really wide enough to make a 180 and no place to land so he chose to continue since he knew the area very well. He got through the pass and was on letdown into the private Bornite airport when the engine really started bucking and all of a sudden, lots of light colored smoke smoke. Very soon, there were flames under the panel. He was about halfway on the downwind leg when the engine flat quit. He kind of stood it on a wingtip and made a 180 but there was a big snow berm he had to get over. Just before reaching it, he dropped full flaps and the ship rose enough to clear (thank goodness he was light) but one wheel ski did leave a mark in the berm and of course it was through flying immediately. He got it stopped OK, they got out in a hurry and than he grabbed the fire extinguisher and put the fire out. It was found that a fuel line had broken and it was raw gas that was burning until it got inside and than it was all the instruments and radios that were burning.
The company sent two mechanics out to get it ready to ferry to Fairbanks. The windscreen had melted, there were no gauges or radios for that ferry flight so what a trip that must have been. Kind of like an open cockpit ship.
The C-185 was replaced with a Beaver which the pilot really liked. I talked to the passenger, a friend of mine, and he said the pilot was so calm and cool it was unbelievable. Just a normal landing like he was used to.
On a business trip to Fairbanks later, I stopped by the hanger to see how the rebuild was going and saw 7 people working on it. Great right?? Read on. After finishing up my work, I went over to the ship to see how it was going and come to find out, they had the radio tuned in to a baseball game and no one was working. The VP of maintenance heard about that of course. Steven, hope that your grandfather was not one of those 7. He would have been working there at the time.
