Chapter Three - Use....More...FLAPS??!!
Never having hired pilots from “Outside” except for the disaster mentioned in the previous chapter, Dan and his other brother Rod who flew with him in the family business, were at somewhat of a loss as to how to turn this greenhorn Texas teenager into an Arctic aviator without anybody, especially them or their customers, getting hurt or killed in the process.
Much less the company fleet was already critically short of flyable airplanes as the town’s only two GOOD commercial A & P’s, Dudley and Clark, had been on a binge down at the Golden Whale for the last four days. This is apparently their equivalent of a “recurrent Annual Refresher Training Seminar” only with lots of beer and fried pork rinds between and during the various workshops and alternating “lectures”. LOTS of beer.
Given that these two fellas, when clear headed, are a couple of the best wrenches in the state; it is no surprise that they demand and get top dollar while making their own rules and they treat ALL the competing operators the same way.
So until this dynamic duo gets their fill of Oly
and pork rinds all the four air taxi operators in Kotzebue just try to keep their fleets holding together as best they can. Ergo, any bent aluminum would be a particular hardship on the operator and give a competitive edge to his neighbors.
Dan and Rod had learned to fly almost before they were out of fourth grade and by the age of 13 were stealing one of their uncle Eddie’s airplanes to fly 350 NM to Fairbanks to see a movie. They’d been gassing and oiling planes since they were big enough to work the barrel pump while standing on a Blazo box.
Dan had flown with me for about 45 minutes in a Cessna 206 in Fort Worth...AFTER he agreed to hire me IF I finished my instrument rating before I came to Alaska. With only about 240 hours total time the day we met, he (wisely) insisted that I NOT come North without it. The 45 minute ride he took with me that day assured him somewhat that I could operate with some minimal degree of safety on a clear day, at least. And after proudly demonstrating my best textbook short-field landing and takeoff (landed on a 3500 foot runway and came to a stop with over three, four hundred feet left over, by golly!!); was somewhat perplexed by his response to my question “Well. How’d Id do? Was that GOOD?” “Well” he says, “I’m pretty sure we can TEACH ya’!!” Only he really didn’t have a clue how!
Finally, he just decided, with crossed fingers, to throw the damn baby in the pool and take a chance the kid would swim rather than sink.
Knowing most of my time had been in 150's and 172's, and having to happen to have a couple of 172s in the family fleet......actually I should explain here. In this case the word “fleet”, while it might conjure up normally a vision of multiple identical airplanes all painted alike; well I’ve used it rather LOOSELY to describe the family’s gathering together of ONE 1960 something baby Aero Commander, ONE 1954 Beechcraft Twin Bonanza (for some reason called “the T-Bone”), ONE sometime post WWII vintage Dornier SkyServant, ONE Piper Comanche 260, ONE Cessna 207, TWO Cessna 172s, and ONE Cessna 150 which Dan was using to teach his 12 y.o. daughter how to fly in. Between the four single engine Cessna aircraft there was ONE VHF radio. It was NOT in the airplane I was to be given.
My “training” for my first professional job was a mix. For the first two days it went like this.
Dan would open up a sectional. He’d point to Kotzebue on the map. And then he’d point to somewhere else and say “Okay. Here’s Ambler, Shungnak, and Kobuk. Go find each one. Land and takeoff. Do NOT stop or TALK to anybody. Go find the next one and then come home when you are done.” Then would follow a good four or five minute “briefing” on each village runway and approaches, obstacles etc. oft times accompanied by some crudely pencil sketched drawings. Then before I could hardly whip out my E6-B and plotter Dan would be shoving me into the airplane saying “figure it out on the way kid. Yer wastin’ DAYlight” (this in the “Land of the Midnight Sun”)
Well, so much for flight PLANning; not realizing that by doing this he was assuring that I was going to learn to think quickly on my feet while in motion, and make sure the big ticket KILL your ass items were covered.
I’d return four or five hours later, and as I chowed down on the always hot cheeseburgers and cold Pepsis he’d have waiting for me as he topped off my Skyhawk yet again. About the time I wolfed down the last bite of food he’d spread open the sectional. “Okay. Now HERE’s Noatak, Kivalina, and Pt. Hope. Go find each one. Land and takeoff. Do NOT stop or TALK to anybody. Go find the next one and then come home when you are done.” Brief, brief, brief. Scribble, scribble, scribble. Now GO!! And the second time around was a little easier and by the third time I just joyously leapt into my trusty stead after double checking the gas caps and head off for the other side of the map. Man! Was I rackin’ up the hours.
Well, after three days of that, fifteen villages and over a five percent (13 hours) increase in my total time as a pilot, it was time to move on to the next phase of this off the cuff new-hire training program.
Quite relieved, and slightly proud of his correct (thus far) assessment of my limited capabilities; happenstance presented Dan with the opportunity to give his pupil (me) some first hand important knowledge as he was called to “pick up some folks” in Noatak, 43 NM away on the 325 degree radial in the Noatak Valley.
Even in the Arctic it can get quite “warm” inland in the summer, and Dan had rightly guessed he would probably be able to fill all the seats if he took the BIG (to me) Cessna, the 207. This would provide the perfect conditions he figured, to teach me the first of MANY tricks the bush pilots know that aren’t taught in the flight schools I learned in.
My first indication that this was to be something other than a “routine” flight was watching Dan measure a precise 15 gallons of 100/130 octane into the left wing tank of an airplane that carries 42 gallons in EACH WING. Urging me into the left seat Dan is giving me the opportunity to get some “heavy” time on the empty leg going up.
Having only four or five hours in a Cessna 206 under my belt at this point, Dan must quickly instruct me as to how to get this big beast fired up and moving in a matter of a few seconds. Time is precious when there are passengers waiting I learn, and we, as well as all the operators in town have a habit of frequently “pilfering” each others “loads”. Or, as my NEXT Boss in the future liked to say “I stole ‘em fair ‘n SQUARE.”
Noting that, when the master switch is turned on, NEITHER fuel gauge comes up off’ the “E”, (okay the left one came up a LITTLE) I am somehow comforted that I WITNESSED the fuel go IN to the left wing and at last glance it didn’t APPEAR to be leaking OUT.
I follow Dan’s quick instructions quickly and accurately and we are moving out of our gravel lot onto the thin strip of asphalt taxiway in less than thirty seconds after buckling in and slamming the doors shut.
Dan reaches up and flips on our King KX170B (yeah, this is the plane with the RADIO!!) While continuing to verbally prod me toward the runway...”’Okay...set the trim about here....cowl flaps are open...keep it rolling...keep it rolling....no, no, I already DID a mag check this MORNING!”..Uh, Uh,...Okay. Before I know it we are already at 65 MPH and it’s time to start easing the nose back. We are OUTTA’ here!!
There’s no DME in those days, no radar, and no remote FSS facilities either. Once out of line-of-sight with OTZ you are on your OWN man. Kotzebue’s VOR operates off a generator that likes to flake out a lot, and is given to frequent power surges and slumps, making for frequently unreliable signals or long total failures. And Dan already plans that I will be spending my next few months (if I stay and SURVIVE) in 37Y, one of his 145HP Cessna 172s.
Now, 37Y is a TAD under-equipped for what I am used to. No navs. No coms. (Who’s there to talk to ANYway, most of the time) got an old early 60's Narco “coffee-grinder” ADF...but DON’T move the knob. It is set to 356. The Hotham beacon and the ONLY beacon around for over 180 nm in ANY direction so DON’T move the knob cause the overhead speaker is broke and if you get it off frequency we might not be able to FIND it again there is no HEATER and oh, yeah. Remember that the artificial horizon reads a ten degree left bank when straight and level, but the needle and ball are pretty straight and accurate ALL the time.
Dan has apparently decided that based on my incident-free performance thus far, if I can find my way to Fairbanks and back in the other Skyhawk (with the GOOD horizon), and pass an F.A.A. Part 135 VFR checkride, he will give me 37 Yankee for the winter, and if I am alive still come breakup; he’ll give me a REAL airplane next year.
Accordingly, as he did in the village briefings, Dan now points out landmarks, and particularly MINUSCULE visual clues, I remember thinking at the time. “Here’s Lockhart Point and this is the mouth of the Noatak, and over there is so-and-so’s fish camp.” He talks non-stop continuously He references ALL landmarks in whole and even HALF minutes sometime, from either lift-off at Kotzebue or another adjacent landmark. He bases the numbers not on the speed of our present mount but ALWAYS on Cessna 172 cruise or slow flight speeds. I start making some effort to file these numbers away in my brain, as I have already determined that your only REAL no-go item around here is your TIMEX. And it BETTER be accurate
We go ripping across the top of Noatak with barely enough altitude to miss the top of the HF antennae tower rising from the clinic’s roof by no more than 10 feet. Something UNDER 100 feet agl. As the Citizen’s Band radio is not working in THIS airplane (EVERY house in the entire REGION has one or more “on” 24/7) this is the best as well as the most common way to alert your departing passengers that you are arriving to pick them up NOW. We chandelle up to a left downwind landing to the north, and as I do this and line up on final Dan points out to me how the tip of the left or western “finger” of some lake just about 3/4 of a mile south of the runway, that we are soon to overfly, lines up in a direct line with the LAST ELECTRIC STREET LAMP bolted to a tall pole on the north end of the village, a point almost two miles away. ReMEMber that he tells me and I wonder “Why?” to myself.
With full flaps we plop down on the south end of the 2800 foot runway and I notice the MUCH heavier Cessna 207...even as empty as we ARE sinks into the soft gravel of the runway MUCH more than did I and my empty 172 when I was here yesterday. I glance at the OAT as we taxi in and am amazed. It’s 75 degrees F!! Wow.!! And Look!! There are DOZENS...Jeez... maybe sixty or seventy people streaming out to the airstrip. OLD...I mean WAY old people ...like maybe fifty or sixty years or even OLDER, kids and toddlers. Man the whole village is out here it seems as Dan whacks the mixture control as I am just steering off the runway into the “ramp” area. Actually no more than a small gravel pad, slightly off the runway which is filled to overflowing with just our airplane and the people who have come out to meet us. Wow. I am STUNNED.
Well, my tail-draggin friends...Ol' CloudDancer's OWN tail is flat draggin' in the dust right about now. And Chapter Three turned out to be a little longer than I expected. So i'm afraid I'm gonna hafta' finish Chapter Three - Use...More....FLAPS tamale. Although I imagine many of you can see guess where CloudDancer is likely to wind up at the end of Chapter three. Or...CAN you? You just MAY be surprised.
See ya'll tamale.