Scud running fatal in Maine

Here's a good article on the subject.

http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182679-1.html

--
Roger Long

"Ben Jackson" wrote in message
news:7x8Xc.68953$mD.5233@attbi_s02...
How would she divert to an airport if she's got straight floats?

Landing on a hard surface on straight floats sure sounds preferable
to what happened...


I saw on the news last year that an amphibian had landed wheels up and close
the airport briefly until it could be towed away. I looked at our tiedown
neighbor's floats to see if it had been him but everything looked OK.
Turned out that it was him! The keels on his floats were a quarter inch
narrower than they had been before but it was no big deal.

--

Roger Long

(Ace Pilot) wrote

This is the kind of accident that scares me the most. As someone
posted earlier, you'd expect a rookie pilot to get sucked into this
kind of accident, but not someone with the experience this pilot had.
Leaves me wondering if there are weather conditions out there that can
be misleading to experienced pilots, which means someone with less
experience (like me) wouldn't stand a chance of recognizing the risk
in a timely fashion.

I flew with Kathy (the pilot who was killed) last year while visiting
relatives in Maine. I was doing brush-up work for my seaplane rating,
and treating the relatives to some flight-seeing. She was an
extremely competent and skilled pilot. There have been numerous
articles about the accident in the Bangor Daily News, which my sister
has been keeping me abreast of. Some are available at
www.bangordailynews.com but for complete text they ask you to pay.
The most recent info is that the engine was generating power at the
time of impact.

With 12 hours of logged time as a seaplane pilot I hardly qualify as
an expert. But to amplify on Ace Pilot's comments, it doesn't make
sense that a veteran seaplane pilot would plow into a mountainside
even in bad weather, considering that emergency landing strips (lakes,
rivers) are everywhere in that area. Speculation, but some of the
explanation may lie in the common bush pilot's ethic that come hell or
high water, they *will* be there to pick you up when they said they
would (Kathy was on a charter pickup).

Kathy's husband Tim is an equally skilled pilot and decent human
being. He was the examiner when I got my seaplane rating with KT
Aviation 2 years ago (the KT is for Kathy and Tim). We sent him a
copy of a video we made during last year's flight with Kathy. Don't
know what's going to happen to KT Aviation, but I'm not optimistic.
It was just the 2 of them and maybe a part-time instructor in the
summer. My heart goes out to Tim.

Jim Rosinski
N3825Q

I think what this accident shows us is that the highest levels of competence
are not sufficient to keep low under the scud from being one of the most
dangerous places you can be in an airplane. Whether the risk is justified
is another question that depends on the mission and who is in the airplane.

You are right about the bush pilot ethic. A friend of mine did fishing camp
flying in Alaska. The Microsoft type high rollers would come up from
Seattle for a day or two of fishing and the idea that a little weather would
send them home without getting their lines wet was never even considered.
Many times, he would fall into bed with his clothes on at midnight and lie
there shaking from the adrenaline until 4:30 when he would get up and do it
all over again. After a few months, he came back to this world and gave up
flying.

--

Roger Long

"Roger Long" wrote in message . ..

You are right about the bush pilot ethic.

I got my ASES at Alaska Float Ratings on the Kenai peninsula, which
also does a moderate amount of part 135 charter ops in the area with 3
floatplanes and 2 landplanes. The owner is a 30+ year bush pilot with
20k hours, most of it on floats up North. Suffice it to say that
while I was there for 4 days, there were probably 2 or 3 charter
flights to fishing lodges that either didn't take off, or turned back
on the way, including ones he flew himself. These were familiar routes
they flew sometimes a dozen times a day every day of the season for
over ten years. "I've never lost a plane, and no pilot I've trained
has ever died up here," he told me. True or not I could see that
unless Little Nell was waiting for her medicine on the other side,
there were plenty of flights they weren't going to push their limits
to make.

-cwk.

I'm glad to here that there are outfits with sense up there. My friend's is
the only first hand report I've ever gotten about that way of life.

Standards probably vary widely up there, just as they do here. It may also
be easier for an established operation to maintain a good attitude than one
just starting out.

I'll make a note of their name in case I ever want to do any flying in AK.

--

Roger Long



"C Kingsbury" wrote in message
om...
"Roger Long" wrote in message
. ..

You are right about the bush pilot ethic.

I got my ASES at Alaska Float Ratings on the Kenai peninsula, which
also does a moderate amount of part 135 charter ops in the area with 3
floatplanes and 2 landplanes. The owner is a 30+ year bush pilot with
20k hours, most of it on floats up North. Suffice it to say that
while I was there for 4 days, there were probably 2 or 3 charter
flights to fishing lodges that either didn't take off, or turned back
on the way, including ones he flew himself. These were familiar routes
they flew sometimes a dozen times a day every day of the season for
over ten years. "I've never lost a plane, and no pilot I've trained
has ever died up here," he told me. True or not I could see that
unless Little Nell was waiting for her medicine on the other side,
there were plenty of flights they weren't going to push their limits
to make.

-cwk.