Bush Pilot Stories

[elkbowhunter]

Dont cha just love Bush Pilots!! FEARLESS.
One of my stories did involve me having to change underwear, ha! We were flying over and spotted two bull moose locking up. We were in the boonies....about 200 miles north of Anchorage..The bush pilot says hey looky there!! and then does this dive like out of TORA TORA TORA!! fun stuff!!! Totally fearless.
Had some pretty cool landings like the one in this video. Its amazing how short those planes can land and take off. Any close call stories out there?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krMPAJB5fVI"]Bush Pilots in Alaska - YouTube[/ame]

[TX_bowhunter37]

Do you do alot of moose hunting?

[elkbowhunter]

Not a lot. Mainly fishing back in those days. Did kill one moose, young bull. I lived up there for 10 years and was stationed up there in the Air Force. I did have a friend who owned a plane so we would go out a lot. Crazy weather up there. I also used to hire a bush pilot for drop offs as we did a lot of backpacking adventure trips in the bush. Really want to go back to hunt moose there in the future.... Working on it.

[TX_bowhunter37]

Cool my wife wants to shoot a moose bull so I am working on getting her a hunt in sept 2014

[elkbowhunter]

COOL.....With a bow?

[TX_bowhunter37]

probably not she more a rifle person I am trying to get her to shoot a bow

[str8shooter]

I'll try to make is short. Me and step dad went across the inlet from Kenai, AK to check the mink and martin traps. Winter time so we are on wheel skis. Overcast so the light is really flat. We landed on the frozen lake, throttled back and we were immediately catapulted in the air. We hit a beaver hut. Full throttle level it out, push the plane back down, hard right rudder, tail section sweeps through the brush. This was a PA 11, so it's basically made of paper. Tore the tail up pretty good and snapped the rudder cable. After checking the traps, we taped the rudder and rest of the tail section with duct tape, and repaired the rudder cable with bailing wire. Needless to say, we were both pretty puckered up on the flight back across the inlet.

Oh, my step dad won the plane in a poker game and he never had a pilots license.

[elkbowhunter]

I'll try to make is short. Me and step dad went across the inlet from Kenai, AK to check the mink and martin traps. Winter time so we are on wheel skis. Overcast so the light is really flat. We landed on the frozen lake, throttled back and we were immediately catapulted in the air. We hit a beaver hut. Full throttle level it out, push the plane back down, hard right rudder, tail section sweeps through the brush. This was a PA 11, so it's basically made of paper. Tore the tail up pretty good and snapped the rudder cable. After checking the traps, we taped the rudder and rest of the tail section with duct tape, and repaired the rudder cable with bailing wire. Needless to say, we were both pretty puckered up on the flight back across the inlet.

Oh, my step dad won the plane in a poker game and he never had a pilots license.

nice!! ya gotta love duck tape!!

[TX_bowhunter37]

I'll try to make is short. Me and step dad went across the inlet from Kenai, AK to check the mink and martin traps. Winter time so we are on wheel skis. Overcast so the light is really flat. We landed on the frozen lake, throttled back and we were immediately catapulted in the air. We hit a beaver hut. Full throttle level it out, push the plane back down, hard right rudder, tail section sweeps through the brush. This was a PA 11, so it's basically made of paper. Tore the tail up pretty good and snapped the rudder cable. After checking the traps, we taped the rudder and rest of the tail section with duct tape, and repaired the rudder cable with bailing wire. Needless to say, we were both pretty puckered up on the flight back across the inlet.

Oh, my step dad won the plane in a poker game and he never had a pilots license.

HOly insert here WOW

[str8shooter]

Love it indeed! Since you lived up there a while, you know what it's like flying with some of these fellas. Had a few more "instances" in planes up there. Landing in Port Graham in winter in a Cessna 206 on wheels......Pilot locked up a brake and we slid sideways down the runway for about 100 yards.

[elkbowhunter]

Love it indeed! Since you lived up there a while, you know what it's like flying with some of these fellas. Had a few more "instances" in planes up there. Landing in Port Graham in winter in a Cessna 206 on wheels......Pilot locked up a brake and we slid sideways down the runway for about 100 yards.

Yes sir.....you ever fly through Lake Clark pass going to Lake Illiamna. The sides of the mountain being so close to your windtips just had an erie feel to it. We had weather roll in behind us one time and for sure thought it was all over...but was able to getter down just in time. FUN TIMES!!

[TX_bowhunter37]

My dad had a plane in Ranger tx we were coming back from the big bend at night. Well the run way there is crap so they cleared mesquite trees out and made a grass runway. The grass runway had no lights all you had was the lights on the bad runway. So its night time and my dad goes to land and lol he misses the runway and lands to far over in the high grass it flatten all 3 tires on his piper cub and tore a hole in the tail.

[elkbowhunter]

my dad had a plane in ranger tx we were coming back from the big bend at night. Well the run way there is crap so they cleared mesquite trees out and made a grass runway. The grass runway had no lights all you had was the lights on the bad runway. So its night time and my dad goes to land and lol he misses the runway and lands to far over in the high grass it flatten all 3 tires on his piper cub and tore a hole in the tail.

yikes!!

[str8shooter]

Yes sir.....you ever fly through Lake Clark pass going to Lake Illiamna. The sides of the mountain being so close to your windtips just had an erie feel to it. We had weather roll in behind us one time and for sure thought it was all over...but was able to getter down just in time. FUN TIMES!!

Yep, and got a couple of stories about that as well. The whole get halfway through the pass and all of sudden it's socked in and you gotta find a way to run around without hitting the mountains thing! A buddy of mine has a cabin on Two Lakes so we used to go moose hunting over there quite a bit. I miss those flights!

[TX_bowhunter37]

yea it was i said