polarpete
Registered User
Fairbanks, Alaska
How many of you had your wife with you on your first off airport landing???? Not sure thats the smartest thing to do but it worked for me. I moved to Alaska in 1978, had been a pilot for about 9 years prior. I had lived in northern California and worked for a Piper Dealer. Only tailwheel time I had was in 7AC champs (65 and 85 hp), about 100 hours about 5 years prior. I took a job in Fairbanks as a mechanic working on Twin Otters and flying part time as a co-pilot in the Otters. I got to know one of the Twin Otter captains who had a super cub. He asked if I would do his maintenance in exchange for the use of the cub. I said you bet! I did his annual in the summer of 79. It was a stock 1959 model 150 hp with GarAero 29X10 tires. He said let's go for a ride and see how you do. I flew around for awhile and made several landings and he said you can use it any time you want. Just don't wreck it this summer because I have a moose hunt planned on the north slope in late Aug. After that it wouldn't matter because we would have all winter to fix it! I was thinking I would prefer not to wreck it at all. I flew the cub 2 times making landings in Fairbanks. I was wondering what my wife would think about the cub. A few weeks later I gave my wife her first Cub ride. Now this is a California raised girl who was used to riding around in new pipers and bonanzas the past 5 years. I thought she would hate this slow, drafty and noisy airplane. I wanted to try out the cub and go fishing. I had heard of a off airport strip by this lake. The strip looked short and narrow at the time. It was about 500 foot elevation, maybe 600-800 feet long. It was cut into some blackspruce trees. But it was narrow and the willows had grown right up to the edge of the strip. There was no room for wandering off the non existent centerline. The willows had been cut down a few years prior and were about 2 feet stubs. So there was plenty of room for the wings to clear. The strip was about 15 feet wide, at the S/E end it was flat for about 150-200 feet and then went across a hill that went uphill to the left. I made a couple of passes to look it over. I touched down at the part where it was sidehill slightly and remember bouncing a couple times. Felt like I was going down hill into the bushes. My feet were busy on the rudders to keep it on the strip. Once down it was to narrow to turn around until I taxied to the end. We fished for pike, took pictures and had a fun afternoon picnic. When it came time to go the wind still favored taking off the same direction as I had landed. It looked short because you couldn't see the other end over the hill. In order to get full length we would have to push the cub backwards about 150 feet into a hole between the trees. The wife and I pushed it back thinking we would need all we could get. At about 150-200 feet from the takeoff end there was a small washout we had to go thru on takeoff. On takeoff we hit the wash and started bouncing (almost flying) and I pulled some flaps and we were airborne. My wife immediately fell in love with the cub. She said she likes to go slow and see things. On the way home we saw lots of moose and on approach to the old Fairbanks ski strip we saw a black bear sow with 2 cubs just 1/4 mile off the end of the strip by the Tanana River. Five years later we bought our own cub. We bought floats for it (the wife really loves it on floats) a couple years later. We still have the same cub today. Twenty seven years (Hunting Alaska) later I still have to smile to myself when I think of that day on takeoff with the wife, thinking I had a heavy load in that airplane! It is amazing what a cub can do. Safe flying to all.