floatplane - taking off frozen lake

"Skywise" wrote in message
...
"Lets Fly" wrote in
:

Snipola
its funny to see you (and everyone else) speculate when you dont know
any of the facts surrounding the video

The only facts present is the video itself. You're the one who
posted the link. If you know more "facts", please enlighten us.

Brian
--

posted from website see other response

Flyingmonk wrote:
It wasn't the ice, but the TREES that I was commenting at, he almost
ate it. :)

That's what caught my eye. I watched a bush float operation flying off
the French River in Ontario about 35 years ago. A Stinson, a Cub, a
Widgeon (maybe not theirs), probably some Cessnas.

Their takeoff was obstructed by an island. The Stinson was often heavy
and they would run it up to the island, usually getting it up in ground
effect for a couple of hundred feet, then zoom climb it over the
island's trees and down the other side out of sight. The good ones
looked like this takeoff. Some were scarier.

Of course we couldn't wait to fly out in the Stinson one day. Wheee!

On Tue, 06 Dec 2005 16:05:45 GMT, George Patterson
wrote:

Peter Duniho wrote:

The video posted is crappy as all get out (not only is the source analog,
but it looks like the tape's been used a zillion times before). It's hard
to tell if the ice is solid or not...it seems as though the ice during the
backtaxi isn't. But the floats do seem to stay on top during the takeoff.

At one point, it looks like there's a second or two of footage of a man standing
on the ice pushing the tail around. Hard to tell, though.

I thought that too, but when he started his take off slide it seemed
to just be how the background looked under the tail.

z

P.S. I like your coffee tag line.

"Lets Fly" wrote in message
...
its funny to see you (and everyone else) speculate when you dont know any
of the facts surrounding the video

Given that we don't know any of the facts, what else would we do BUT to
speculate?

Duh.

I also find it amusing for you to categorize my comments as "speculation".
Mostly all I've said is "you can't tell anything useful from the video".

Duh.

zatatime wrote:

I thought that too, but when he started his take off slide it seemed
to just be how the background looked under the tail.

Yeah, but it seemed to me there was a gap in the tape. Like the cameraman had
stopped filming for a minute. Who knows.

P.S. I like your coffee tag line.

From the latest Pratchett novel -- "Thud." You can count on Terry.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Peter Duniho wrote:

Put something solid like ice in the water, and all bets are
off.

Yep. I saw a hydroplane hit a submerged log once at about half speed. There's an
Allison V-12 somewhere in the muddy bottom of Fort Loudon lake.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Lets Fly wrote:

posted from website see other response

It doesn't contain any more useful info than the video does.

George Patterson
Coffee is only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to
your slightly older self.

Maule Driver wrote:
That's what caught my eye. I watched a bush float operation flying off
the French River in Ontario about 35 years ago. A Stinson, a Cub, a
Widgeon (maybe not theirs), probably some Cessnas.

I haven't had the pleasure of seeing a float plane in person yet, only
in videos. Anyways, this http://mhs.ryjones.org/Videos/bush-pilot.wmv
isn't you and your Maule trying to pickup those hunters is it? :)

On 6 Dec 2005 04:30:24 -0800, wrote:

Dan,

Actually the airplane that came to a stop in the whiteout over
Greenland was a B-17 (My Gal Sal). That began a very long rescue
effort (some months) in which a number of people died getting the crew
out.

What you may be recalling is that the legendary Bernt Balchen (first
person to pilot an aircraft over both poles, Byrd's pilot across the
Atlantic in 1927 and over the South Pole in 1929) landed a PBY, gear
up, on the ice pack a number of times during the rescue (he also
successfully took off). He also landed on a temporary lake that formed
on the ice pack due to melting ice.

All the best,
Rick


Rick, Dan is correct, such an incident did in fact occur. Here is the
full accounting:

Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina
(7278)

This accident occurred while flying over Greenland Ice Cap at an
altitude of 4500-ft indicated. This should have given a clearance of
1000-ft according to charts of the area. Weather and snow covered
terrain resulted in poor depth perception. Without realizing they were
close to the ice, as a horizon was visible and were not on
instruments, they suddenly made contact on the upgrade of a 400-ft
slope. the pilot immediately applied throttles in an attempt to get
into air but was unsuccessful due to the slope. Further attempts to
swing plane around in order to take-off down grade were unsuccessful
as plane sank into snow and ice. Block and tackle was dropped, but
that also proved unsuccessful. The Ice Cap presents an unbroken pure
white surface and when the prominent cost of landmarks are not
visible, depth perception is extremely difficult, analagons to flying
over glassy water in low visibility. It is considered that the
fundamental cause of this accident was the almost lack of depth
perception. This plane and its crew were strained on the ice cap for
fifteen days, but were in constant touch with there base by radio. A
plane dropped supplies and salvage equipment. On the 14th day a Danish
Rescue party reached them. On the fifteenth day they abandoned there
plane, all confidential publications, the IFF, SBAE and RADAR being
destroyed. They returned by foot to the rescue party's came and on the
sixteenth day returned to the NORTH STAR. Except for extreme cold,
none of the crew suffered any ill effects.

I heard of this incident from my father who trained in PBY's in 1943
but did not fly them during his time in the South Pacific, he flew
PB4Y-1's. He told me that he met the pilot of the ill fated PBY. I
believe he was somewhere in the south pacific at the time he met the
pilot, and the guy told him the story first hand.

In my father's version, he claimed the crew did not actually notice
that they had stopped on the ice cap. The pilot did notice that the
airspeed indicator had dropped to zero and sent the engineer to see if
the pitot tube had iced over. The flight engineer returned to tell
him that it looked like they were not actually flying...

I think the official version from:
http://home6.inet.tele.dk/ron/greenland/crash270143.htm

is probably more accurate, after all, there is a certain amount of
noticeable deceleration when you come to a stop from 100mph or so.

Corky Scott

after all, there is a certain amount of
noticeable deceleration when you come to a stop from 100mph or so.

Given that there was an upslope and a downslope, I tend to agree.
However, if it were fairly flat, and the aircraft settled gently (a
greaser landing) and the props cleared the ground, I suppose it might
not be noticed from certain perspectives, especially with sufficient
padded winter clothing, a little turbulence, and a lot of noise while
flying.

Jose
--
You can choose whom to befriend, but you cannot choose whom to love.
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