Corvus Migrans the Wandering Raven II

Thank you, thank you, thank you...mere words cannot describe the joy and adventure your writing and pictures bring out.

One ?...I remembered seeing a cargo pod on the Raven when you did your loop of Canada. I see it is gone. How do you fit everything in with only extended baggage? Do you carry extra fuel bladders? I seem to remember that you have the 48 Gal tanks.

Looking forward to more of your adventures.
Fly Safe!

Lou

corvus-migrans said:

At the end of the airstrip I found an old Continental C-145 engine sitting in the grass with crushed accessories in the back. And my imaginations came up. What if a pilot, years ago, in a loaded Cessna 170 took off to the south, in similar turbulences as now and got thrown into the little cluster of trees about 600 feet away, which are a little bit in the flight path? In my fantasy I started to understand, why this nice lodge and place is falling apart. Something must have happened with the driving person of this place 10-14 years ago.

Click to expand...

FWIW, it wasn't a 170. http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=47558&key=0 The rest of the plane is underneath that clump of trees. It wasn't related to the demise of the lodge.

Back country flyer

I vote that we set it up with the wandering raven to pay us a visit in two or more area's for a seminar with pictures of course. Make him some money for his next trip and we all could learn from his back country travels.

Bill

I'm in....let's invite him to JC next year.

Lou

PS...what do you think Dave?

Hi friends
I am really happy and glad to read your comments.
Because I do not like to bear the responsibility of a another person flying with me in my way, I have to enjoy the moments alone. So at least afterward showing my adventures to similar people like me, makes me glad.
But that kind of flying I am doing, is done every day by professionals, like guides, airline pilots etc. Landing off airport, crossing water straights, flying in clouds, they are doing it for a living. I know pilots they have 15000 to 25000 hours bush flying experience. These are my heroes and examples. I cannot “compete” with them! Even I am able to land my “ton-cub” within a distance of 300 feet and take off in the same. But on my voyages I pretty much look for 500 feet and up landing spots, with some exceptions
It cost you 4000,--$ to get a cub out by helicopter and that only over a distance of 30 miles and it will become a fortune to recover it out of remote places in Canada. The last time the chopper had cost me 7500,--$, but the repair was only 4500,--$
How often did I make 15-20 flybys and still did feel uncomfortable to land, so I looked for something else, you’ll find always ever. But you ran for sure into some problems to press ton-cub into a particular spot, because it is good fishing, hunting or it is a very nice camping or scenery place, my own experience. And how often did I pee almost into my pants, because of sudden situations I encountered. What did a friend once said to me: “What is an experienced pilot? It is a pilot who survived his experiences!”. How true! And how often, when I learned flying in the bush, the bullet missed me barely.
For instance 18 years ago, I got pressed by a firm ceiling at Igloo, on a flight to Anchorage, into the river channel of the Chulitna River. Cruising right in this channel, seeing black and white spots zooming up below and above me, so ducks and swans, finally I saw a solid rock wall in front of me. The river turned 90° in a kind of steep canyon to the left. I was lucky, having a little depression on the right side on the upper surface, with a ceiling of barely 20 feet. I went up to make a 180° turn with one wing in the clouds and with the other almost chopping off the treetops. Three miles back the channel was wide with good gravel bars, so I landed here. When I stepped out I almost felt on the ground, so weak and shivering were my legs! THAT was a lesson I learned, having always ever a way out, either that famous 180° turn, a landing site below, a depression, a valley or what ever. And never ever let you get pressed in certain situations. You HAVE all the time available you need. Let the friends or who ever it is wait! Your situation is first place!
Think ahead AND do not pinch with fuel!! Many accidents are heavily connected with running out or being short of fuel.
Think about hangar flying. This is a pretty macho place, but you’ll get a lot of informal information here. Because these are mostly pretty macho, understandable because the pilot had survived his experience :lol: , you have to take it with a big grain of salt! But still, where else do you want to get informal infos?

Hi friends!
I really feel honored about that, that you want to invite me. But I guess I am not able to satisfy, what you do await from me. I can talk a lot in my Germanized English, when the day is long :roll: , but to talk in front of an auditorium, is a whole different thing AND that is in the lower 48. Hey, I have to fly down for a week,! I rather like to fly in the bushes that time . AND think by than I am 68. It would be too stressful for me. I feel how my body reacts when I fly a distance of 500 miles. This is a climate change and I feel this pretty well next day. I feel like boozed up the day before. Not a good situation to talk entertaining in front of an auditorium!
But here I tell you: What you want to learn, you already know. But what you need now is time to get your practical experiences. Nobody can give you that in a classroom.
BUT what I always see with friends is that the people only learn when they have to do this, to get their license. After that they have no time, no money for fuel and other excuses. They do not read and learn from other’s experiences, do not improve and are frozen of being afraid to scratch their lovely bird. But bush flying IS pretty risky. The biggest problem is to determine in flight the surface structure you want to land on, just 10-20 feet above the ground. If you have not much of an outdoor experience you are lost! And in addition, without not flying your sweetie regularly, but only at hunting season, it leads for sure to some catastrophes. I know pilots they handle their baby very well, but do land in the bushes only on airstrips. So the outdoor experience stays forever at the same altitude.
Your C-M

Well! I never had a cargo or fuel pod. That must have been somebody else. I wanted to buy one, but drag and price were the reasons I didn’t do. Instead I have 60 gals A.Dodge long range fuel tanks, which give me in still air an endurance of about 640 miles. But I consider my practical safe range at 400-500 miles depending on the weather and the wind conditions. On two of my legs in Canada, I had to fill up some of my durable 5gals polyethylene water bags, to cross from the west side to the east side of the Hudson Bay and than to continue down to Wabush/Labrador City, because this was the first place going south where 100LL was available-, except at Ivujivik. At places between the tanks at the airports were empty. At all the other places on my Canadian voyage there was 100LL available within my range.
When Dan’s rebuild my cub, I wanted to have the most amount of baggage space. So I got a huge lower baggage compartment and under the turtle deck a second baggage area. And because of my heavy O-360 with the big 1A200 prop, the club, in front, it makes my plane nose heavy when empty. But on the other way, when loaded, I have a very heavy tail, which prevents very good a nose over, when landing in rough or soft sites. My cub has more than 80 modifications and is quite heavy compared to other cubs. But all together I can load 750# !! into it, including fuel and am still legal! It is a cub Dan’s build for me, according to my specifications and wishes. As one of Dan’s mechanics said: “Isn’t it your dream airplane?” = It is!!! It is my platform, which gives me the possibilities to travel the world in my way.

Your C-M

Corvus-Migrans

Thanks for sharing your heart-felt thoughts and convictions. You have my respect and understanding. The sense of well-lived life and deep personal adventure from going out in the natural world with your will and your wits is magnificent. I wish you happy Cubbin' for many more years.

Bob Breeden.

Hi Friends
Two weks ago the FSS here in Fairbanks told me, that the weather for the next 60 hours would be perfect for a fishing trip to the Kobuk River. So I hurried up a friend, he always ever wanted to fish for sheefish. And what a marvelous flight we had next day. But after landing in Bettles to top up, we got ramp checked. We just have left our planes, when a FAA guy appeared. He asked us for the ARROW stuff and made photos of our planes. He told us, every time around hunting season the accident rate goes up steep, so the FAA decided to do something. Well, ramp checks may have their rights, but to avoid bush flying accident, I guess that’s for sure not the right way. It is better to try to press the lazy pilots to practice more, before doing the heavy stuff. The flying proficiency is by far superior, than if everything is placarded right. Proficiency is the most important thing to fly safe! You can be legal as much as you can, you misjudge the surface, the length, the crosswind component etc.etc.etc. and weng your airplane and may be you are a ball. How do they want to control this, the real circumstances of bush accidents? I guess ramp checking in remote airports is just an excuse to be outside. But at least he was a nice guy!
Well, the ramp check cut us an hour off from fishing. We landed after a nice continuing flight, crossing some mountains at higher altitude, on a gravel bar at the Kobuk River. Because it was late afternoon, early evening my friend took immediately his fishing pole and went to the water. While I was still preparing my tools, I saw his rod bent after his first cast. Hey friends! Was he happy, when he had the first sheefish, he caught in his life, in his hands. Within the first hour we caught about 25 fish. My friend was in fisherman’s heaven. Next day he caught his bag limit and took off for his caribou hunt north of the Brooks Range. I spent one more day at this place to enjoy.
Before I wanted to take off, I called the FSS on my satellite phone, to get some weatherinfo. They told me about an active fast moving bad weather front coming in from the west. So I decided to fly the 1 ½ hours north to warn my friend.
I crossed the Schwatka and Endicott Mountains, having blue sky at the horizon to the east and heavy mountain obscurations to the west. But my ceiling was still good to fair and I had a favorable tailwind. Turbulences were not so bad. But this was after all the years flying in Alaska, my first crossing of the real and high Brooks Range. And it was again, despite the oncoming bad weather, a real picturesque new country experience. Black, sharp contoured, snow covered mountains ahead; brown, red and yellow covered fall valleys beneath, what a harsh romantic site and I flew over it.
When I arrived at his mentioned place I had 20-40 miles S-W winds, strong turbulating over the mountains and absolute miserable front sight, in drifting rain, slush and snow, so I had to keep care not to fly into the hills. I had to look left and right out of the windows, to get the real picture to navigate. Again a cheers to the slow flying cubs.
It took a while to find the place of my friend. But he was not there. Well, he was wise enough to leave soon.
So I turned my ship east direction Bettles. But now I had that stiff burbling winds against me. 40 miles groundspeed showed my GPS, my indicated was 80 miles. My calculations showed, that I would have some problems to get safe to Bettles ( you see, fuel problems again). So I fiddled around with lee and luv sides, up and downs and ended finally flying 30-50 feet in surprisingly little turbulences with 60-65 miles groundspeed along a big valley. You see you always ever have a way out, you only have to find him. And I always could land on the gravel bars below me and could sit out the weather. Finally I arrived the side valley, which led to Bettles and got 70-80 miles groundspeed. I had still 10 gallons fuel left, when I arrived at Bettles to refuel and was in my bed in Fairbanks by 11:30pm. This flight altogether lasted only 5 ½ hours. But the flight into the Brooks Range under these conditions, especially under that kind of light, was not only picturesque, in these turbulences, it was also challenging and entertaining. Handling up and downdrafts, thinking ahead, where at the next corner a downdraft will hit you, or to find a nice updraft, or if that corner in front of you may generate ugly turbulences, so you have to stay away from it on your flight. It sounds crazy, but flying in gorgeous weather becomes after a while boring. In this kind of weather, I had here, the time is also flying and that very fast. AND here especially unforgettable, I flew in really beautiful countryside . Under these conditions I felt a little bit the old times lonesomeness of the bush pilots, when they flew in the historic past in this marvelous country.
C-M

Ivotuk?

Hi friends!
It’s now coming to an end. The season is fading out. I spent three enjoying and entertaining month in Alaska. There were days in a hunting camp of my friends, which had shot four moose. It was very interesting for me to see how much moose meat I can transport with my cub at once and still being airborne at 2000’ MSL, in a reasonable short distance. We had fresh venison in camp and as ever, at night, a grizz came into the camp between the airplanes. But he got spooked off pretty easy.
On another occasion I got a two second crash course, how to land in feet deep mud, without turning over. My friends told me, I could land at their duck camp in the Minto Flats.
It is sandy underground with one to two inches muddy stuff on top, but safe 400 feet long, I got told. They wanted to mark it for me with some tons. Well the tons were there. But to the east, there was all kind of building material on the ground. Well, I had to land anyway into the west, into of the strong wind. I made a firm roll-around through that stuff. It felt muddy but firm. Than I made my second and final approach, set full flaps and flared. When I slowed down and became heavy, I started to very slow down and then tail came up, so I throttled up and up and up to hold the tail down and finally for a short time used full controlling power sliding, splashing through the deep mud, until I came to a stop. Friends this was soft foot deep mud! I was pretty surprised, but not very amused! It took me, with some tricks, 30 minutes to bring my plane back to terra firma. My friends later told me, I had landed into the wrong direction. Curtis, my instructor, meant, when he did see my tracks, which looked like being made from a tank, he never would believe, that somebody would be able to land there. He mentioned that no normal bush pilot would land their (thanks!). Well, but which bush pilot is normal and what is normal?
Interesting lesson I learned, is, that I would be able to duplicate this landing again in a safe way. For me it was a very, very valuable experience, how I have to react and work my plane in such a situation to save it.
Well so far till next year and fly safe friends
Corvus Migrans the wandering raven

C-M,
Thank you for sharing your 2009 adventure. Your wanderings are most interesting and I marvel at your ability to tackle what comes your way. The mud landing must have been a hair raising experience. Thanks again!

Hey folks! I just got some DVD's from the wandering raven. Now you can see his travels on video, hear the voice, etc! It's great! I have a limited supply of these.

http://shop.supercub.org/DVD-and-Vi...Raven-Only-the-Horizon-Was-the-Limit-p47.html

sj

DVD

I have looked at the DVD twice and it is great ! you can learn alot from this DVD. Think I will see it again tonight, with a bowl of popcorn and a beer. Get one you will like it.

Bill

Thanks Raven!
This was truly Great!
John

The year


2010






.

Hi friends
Well, the wandering raven becomes worn out. This year for sure is not my year. We found a broken ring and a stuck ring on my engine. I sent my first run 950 hrs investment cast Millennium Cylinders to an engine shop at Merrill Filed/Anchorage for an overhaul. I wanted to have new guides and the valves reground. The first what they did they cracked two of these nice cylinders on hammering out the valve guides and almost destroyed a third one. I was absolutely p… off! Except of 500$ they didn’t cover their work. And I was grounded for 30 days. Now I am chasing the brake-in of the rings. You cannot make long range flying with an engine, which uses 1 quart every 1 1/2-2 hours. It is quite impractical to carry two or three cases of mineral oil with you :-? But still I flew up to the Brooks Range up to Old John Lake and camped on return at the mouth of the Sheenjik River. Later I flew for two days to the Kobuk River and had an absolute nice Sheefishing time. The biggest I caught was a little over 4 feet long.
But with this malady it was not enough. On a drive with my car down the Parks Highway short before Healy my transmission broke. 10 days later I got the new rebuild transmission and it made noise. 14 days later another rebuild transmission was even worse, beside the still present noise I could not shift into the fifth gear and had difficulties to get into reverse. Now I am waiting for the third gear. Oumph!
And besides this the Alaskan weather in July was everything else than nice. And if you looked at the weather at the Aleutians there was one low pressure chasing each other from the south like on a chain. This spoiled all of my plans with rain, IFR and in particular with heavy gusting turbulent winds. But at least the normally rainy August in the interior seems to be better.
C-M

P.S.: Pictures will follow soon

HELP:

I am getting old. I forgot how to place pictures from the photogallery into the forum/thread. AND I cannot find the directives. Sorry.Please be so kind and direct me.
Thanks C.M.

C-M

Click on the thumbnail photo to make it larger. Right click for a menu, click on properties at the bottom of the menu, now in the box you will find the URL address. Make the address blue by click and drag. Right click and hit the copy button(or press and hold the "Ctrl" button and then push the letter C). Your computer has now stored the address of that photo. In your post, click on the img box, insert the address(press and hold Ctrl key then the letter v), then click on the img box again and you have that photo in. It will look sorta like this.

[imq]http://www.supercub.org/photopost/data/500/medium/DSC01453.JPG[/img]

This is somewhat abreviated but since you have done this before hopefully it will jog your memory. I sure enjoy your posts. Thank you for taking the time to share your wonderful travels with us.

Bill

Thanks for the help. Somethig happened to my computer. The picture this year looked different

Did not get to see the DVD more than once....in 82 minutes barking dogs and questions from others had me distracted but what I saw was beautiful.
The editing and voice explanation narrator were great. The scenery of course of northern Canada was just as great.

Yes it is $34 plus s/h for a home production but I believe you will see it is worth it.
I plan on having it on the big screen at the WADfest this year.

I need to take the time and ask many questions of the Raven reading this post when I have time as I see his experience and ability are not far beyond many who post here. He has made the comment about the Chopper ride for his cub so I assume he has paid for his experience.

Thanks
John

I have paid a lot and not once. That is the way to selfteach you bushfying. A friends saying: What is an experienced bushpilot, that is a pilot who survived his experiences. How true.
C.-M.

Raven,
I need to learn German as I heard many comments in the background over the prop. I am sure these were lesson pearls.
John

Just a little explanation about my flying carrier


In all the years flying in Alaska and Canada, especially in the environments of the Aleutian and Admiralties, I never could perform this kind of flying in a close safety in my way of bush flying without knowing my cub, my abilities and the environments I am flying in. I had a hard time to learn it and to teach myself bush flying, smacking, cracking up my cub several times. In the time I leaned flying years ago I couldn’t find a descend CFI, who was a good bush pilot. So I listened to my bushpilot friends to learn their flying. I had made my US-license in Alaska 22 years ago within 5 ½ weeks with a written score of 98 percent and I am proud about that. Especially I made it in a language I didn’t speak as good as today. Now I have Curtis, Curtis Cebulsky, my alaskan CFI, who gives me ideas to improve my skill. He is not arguing with me when I took a risk, because he knows me and my performance. Before, there were so many “friends”, they were hopping, knocking on me, when I had cracked up my plane, because I made a wrong decision. That is so “friendly” nice, especially when your mind is absolutely in the dirt.
Sometimes flying in the worsest weather or conditions, icing up with freezing rain, storms, flying under extreme low ceiling, flying over the ocean in mist and almost diving into it, snow squalls they are whiteouts and more, you name it and even than mostly you cannot imagine it. You hang in the air, cannot land, but have to continue or to crash. Sometimes in some Alaskan areas the weather changes with a flick of your eyes, so you have to foresee that every moment you are in the air, being aware of it. In the last 22 years I got my lessons teached, like every serious bush pilot in AK. I do not know how many times I had a close call, but I learned, as everybody seriously flying here in AK.
8-10 month in a year I am in Germany. Even I have a US based German pilot license; I do not fly in Germany. I am spoiled for that kind of flying you do in the old country. So when I come back to AK, I have to train my then stiff ability of flying. It takes 20-30hrs; 100-200 stop & goes on a gravel bar every time until I am back in my last year’s skill and only then I am building up more performance.
So it is no wonder that I make mistakes. In top shape, then at the end, I leave, only to continue next year the same procedure. But my friends, real friends, say, hey Ingo when little kids are playing they fall on their snout and there are not many pilots here in the state they do what you are doing and go where you go. That keeps my mind up!
I flew three times the Aleutian. This marvelous beautiful chain, WHEN you have nice weather. Even when I go with high pressure and good weather a few days later the worse weather is back. The weather changes there every moment and JUST around the corner. For me it is THE challenge. Taking off in the wind shadow of 20’ dunes with 50miles crosswind is one of these challenges. When you get lift and come into the strong wind transition to the laminar air, it shakes you like a dry leave and even worse. Without propper preparation and knowledge of airflow and my now ability to handle my cub instinctively, 4 years earlier I would have crashed. The same is with landing in one foot deep mud or landing under crosswind conditions with only one operable brake or in high tussock grass or whatever is there on the ground.
Friends! Alaska is THE country in North America to learn bush flying. It is beautiful but also hard. For sure you have more than beautiful weather here. But the times the weather is down, it is down and it is just around the corner. You can say, if you survive your experiences, THEN you are an experienced bush pilot. I do not count myself close to that. I am not bad, but still not top. But in the last 35 years visiting Alaska I learned a lot about the nature here and the ability I have to have, to survive my kind of travelling in the bush. And still once in a while it gets me. This is what I wanted to explain to you, as a background when you read my travel logs and flying adventures.

Ingo, your one amazing pilot in my book. All of us really enjoy your story's and pictures. I don't know how many times I have watched your DVD with your adventures. I always pick up something new in it that I missed before. You have helped me a great deal and I have been careful trying some of your idea's. All of us face a bit of a risk just getting into our planes, but you have helped us all thank you for that.
One thing I have noticed Ingo, is that those camp fires you build sure like to blow smoke on you no matter where you sit ? Keep up with the storys and pictures and were looking forward to the second DVD.


Bill

Well Bill, my DVD "From Alaska to Newfoundland in a Cub" is finished in German language. It is 105 minutes long and has one strong surprise, I have not mentioned in my travellog. But it is a hard work to translate all the text in the right way and later to make it fit in the video clips. So be patient. But it will come somewhen.
I am also working slow on another video about my flying carrier, experiences and adventures of the past 22 years in Alaska from the very beginning. But there is such a tremendous amount of material that it is a pain to select the right entertaining stuff and not to sink into romantik reminders.
I also work on a short DVD about winterflying in AK. But this is a slow project because of the still needed material, certain situations, procedures which are sometimes hard to get under winterconditions. Sometimes in the cold the cameras just simly strike or the batteries are cold or I do not have a cameraman with me.
C-M

P.S.: Did you write a book? When so, where can I get this?