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DC-3 Flying

stoldriver

Registered User
Arizona
I mentioned in another thread that I had done some DC-3 flying. Spent one season in Alaska flying fish mostly out of Bristol Bay and Cape Yakataga. Based in several places, Kodiak, Kenai, Yakutat for some of it. I also mentioned blowing a cylinder and I'm trying to learn how to post photos so here, hopefully, is a photo of the engine after we landed in King Salmon. The cylinder was completely off but hanging out in the bottom of the cowl. An intake tube was gone and is still somewhere northeast of King Salmon, I suppose. I mentioned already that we were mostly empty but could not maintain altitude which was not the norm for single engine work in a DC-3. I'm pretty sure it was mostly because of the disrupted aerodynamics. Second photo, if it works, is at Cape Yakataga, north of Yakutat. I was in the Salair bird. That airplane, N3433Y, eventually crashed off the end of Spokane, burned up killing the crew. Third photo is also at Cape Yakataga showing a bent 180. I talked to the owner and he told me he knew the pilot was marginal but he needed a pilot and I guess, didn't feel like he had any choice. If it was his only choice, I guess it wasn't a very good one. This was the summer of 89, I think.
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Wayne
 

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Looks like it worked. Here's some more photos from that summer.
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C-46 landing on Egegik beach on Bristol Bay passing by the three I was in.
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Flight line at Kodiak while I was based there. I was in 98C, the Salair DC-3 in the foreground, my favorite of the fleet.
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Again on Egegik with a C-119 under my wing.

Wayne
 

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Keep em coming- love the pics of “back in the day”. Any of you other guys have “real job” pics from days of yore?
 
89? That's the year of the Exxon Valdez oops. I thought most of the commercial guys couldn't fish that year around Kodiak and in Prince William Sound.
 
It sure was the year of the Valdez. There were tons of people in Alaska that summer for the cleanup including in Kodiak. I remember it playing heck with trying to find a place to stay. Eventually found a non furnished house out of town a ways for a really high price. Slept on the floor but we had a roof and a free salmon every night. :roll: You are also right that the fishing was closed in Kodiak but it was open in Bristol Bay. We would fly across the bay, land on the beach to load, then fly back to the cannery in Kodiak. We only worked the Bristol Bay side until like late July and then moved down to Yakutat.

Wayne
 
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