Pictures from Alaska

[Baradium]

View all the photos at these two links:
http://mtsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2046650&l=db8c8&id=38407499

http://mtsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2041448&l=9fe3a&id=38407499


A taste:


There are some shots of there of icing before and after blowing the boots on a known ice aircraft.  I'll post those ones specifically.  One of the pictures is actually during the blow cycle, the inboard ice has blown off and the outboard half of the wing still has it.

[Baradium]

Icing:





Blowing the boots:



If you look at the spinner, you can see the ice build up forming on it as well.  There is a thin layer over the whole spinner, with a dome starting to form on the tip.


Less ice on the wing:
 

[Baradium]

My office:



170 KTS indicated, 1500 ft/min climb at 16,500 ft     I remember being excited at 1,000 ft/min out of a 172 near sea level before...

[Baradium]

Now for the scenery:

Denali (Mt. McKinley):







Katmi Lodge (southern Alaska, west of Anchorage by a few hundred miles):


If you look straight ahead you'll see a brown V shape with the point towards the right.  The entire V is a "runway."  It doesn't merit dirt road status IMO.

I couldn't get any pictures closer to the airport, things happen too fast at that one...

[Baradium]

On the ground in Gambel, AK  on St. Lawrence Island, 40 miles from the Russian mainland.



Gambel from the air:


If you look at the inland lake towards the center of the picture, the runway is on the first half of that narrow strip between that and the ocean.


L-100 Hurcules (L-100 is the civilian variant of the C-130) on the ground in Anchorage.  I havn't seen this one move, but I'm told it does sometimes.

[Baradium]

The Tundra on the North Slope, endless flat nothingness...




The ice off of the nothern coast 3 weeks ago:



Mountains:



It's a pity I can't show y'all the original pictures, they look much better than the shots on the photo CD.  Drug store photoprocessing is just not that great when it comes to putting film onto CD....

[Frank N. O.]

The pictures still look fantastic, thank you very much for sharing so we can get at least a glimpse of the fantastic view 
There at Denali, is that really a mountain-range sticking up in the background seemingly blended perfectly with the colour of the clouds?? That looks scary.
That L-100 looks pretty long doesn't it? How much can they be stretched those Hercs?

Frank

[fireflyr]

Great pictures, great scenery, Alaska is a GRRRREAT place to visit.   
Too bad I never got to take any icing pictures but being a frieght dog flying at night, well, there went all the photo ops...............
The first time Charmaine was ever in an airplane was a Beech 99 freighter enroute to Seattle (snuck her on board) and we were in moderate freezing precip over  southern Oregon, I was kind of white knuckling it and trying to be casual but she was pretty nervous----everthing wound up OK I guess cause she married me anyway.

[Baradium]

The pictures still look fantastic, thank you very much for sharing so we can get at least a glimpse of the fantastic view 
There at Denali, is that really a mountain-range sticking up in the background seemingly blended perfectly with the colour of the clouds?? That looks scary.
That L-100 looks pretty long doesn't it? How much can they be stretched those Hercs?

Frank

Which picture of Denali?  There are two pictures showing denali.    Depending on which direction we are going,  Denali is about up at our altitude when we are in cruise passing it!   We usually are cruising at 200 one way and 210 the other...  It's quite a sight.   Some days the entire mountain is in the clouds, some days the lower ones are with tops peeking through.  You don't want to be running around randomly in the clouds in that area. 

The herc does look pretty long to me as well.  The engines look pretty small too, it's also only got 3 blade props as well.  I don't get to see the J models next to it, so it's hard to compare.  I don't know if maybe the A models are more slender than the newer ones possibly?

[Baradium]

Great pictures, great scenery, Alaska is a GRRRREAT place to visit.   
Too bad I never got to take any icing pictures but being a frieght dog flying at night, well, there went all the photo ops...............
The first time Charmaine was ever in an airplane was a Beech 99 freighter enroute to Seattle (snuck her on board) and we were in moderate freezing precip over  southern Oregon, I was kind of white knuckling it and trying to be casual but she was pretty nervous----everthing wound up OK I guess cause she married me anyway.

I'd never even heard of a Beech 99 until I got up here.  Company has two of them though.  They are based in Barrow.  Poor 99 crews.     Those guys get a guaranteed 2 week on/off schedule though and get a daily guarantee and per diem (we get neither down here) as well as company provided housing.  I'm perfectly happy to get paid less and pay for housing and *not* live in Barrow personally. 

Did you have a cargo pod on the 99?  Ours do, mainly because you can't put baggage in the cabin on a 99!   It's a technicality that the FAA hasn't gotten over yet.  Normally an aircraft is certified for "Passengers and/or Cargo" in the cabin.  The Beech 99 is certified for "Passengers or Cargo" in the cabin.  So the FAA says we can have either passengers or cargo, not both.  Wonder how we'd transport passengers' luggage without a cargo pod!        I bet we're working on an STC to add the "and" in there.   

Trade-A-Plane had an AN-2 Colt for sale in the Anchorage area in the current issue.  Someone needs to buy that!   I think it was only $40,000... dirt cheap for the worlds' largest biplane (just under the type rating requirements).  Stall speed is supposedly below what the airspeed indicator can indicate...

[BrianGMFS]

That L-100 looks pretty long doesn't it? How much can they be stretched those Hercs?

Actually its not a C-130... It's a Douglas C-133 Globemaster II. They were used to haul Atlas Missles around the Country in the 60's (as well as other USAF freight work) it is much larger than the Herk. the aircraft that replaced it was the C-141 Starlifter. they apparently had some wing spar problems with them and they were retired early. I checked the FAA registry and there are only 4 on the registry and 2 are in Alaska hauling freight. The other two are in California in storage.

(Yes I'm an airplane Trivia Nut )

You sure get around Alaska in those 1900's...

Brian

[Baradium]

[
Actually its not a C-130... It's a Douglas C-133 Globemaster II. They were used to haul Atlas Missles around the Country in the 60's (as well as other USAF freight work) it is much larger than the Herk. the aircraft that replaced it was the C-141 Starlifter. they apparently had some wing spar problems with them and they were retired early. I checked the FAA registry and there are only 4 on the registry and 2 are in Alaska hauling freight. The other two are in California in storage.

(Yes I'm an airplane Trivia Nut )

You sure get around Alaska in those 1900's...

Brian

It's the tail isn't it?  I did aircraft ID with flight team, looks like I found the next aircraft to send pics down of.  I already need to get some weird angle shots of a 1900 to try to throw them off.
I need to know what to look for (other than it looking long for an A model).  I did note that I thought the engines looked really weird for a C-130, going to have to investigate that further...  even in person I didn't notice the size difference from a Herc, although I can't see them side by side.  I did notice the nose looked longer than I expected for an A, more like a J model but knew it wasn't that.  It does look a bit more slender than I remembered the A models being (that's the other thing, not seeing A models very often).   Lyndon Air Transport uses L-100s, but I havn't seen those ones in person.

Here's our route map:


Some of the runs are deceptive and we don't go all of those places with the 1900.  I havn't been to some of the Anchorage destinations yet that the 1900 does serve (only been to Aniak and Bethel out of Anchorage).

The 1900 goes up the slope but it doesn't make a circle.  Goes from Fairbanks-Barter-Deadhorse-Nuiqsik-Barrow and reverse back down.  That and there's a direct Fairbanks-Barrow run.  We go to the Island from Nome on our daily trip out there, but the smaller destinations there are for Navajos.  For Kotzebue the 1900 goes to Point Hope and occassionally goes to Noatak (it's usually run by a Navajo).  1900 crew bases are in Fairbanks and Anchorage (the largest being in Fairbanks), each day always ends back at the crew's base.  Galena-Kaltag-Nulato is twice a day and usually run by a 1900.  Ruby and Koyukuk are 1900 as required and otherwise Navajos and Ft. Yukon is a 1900 run.  Most other destinations can be a 1900 run if required for charter or

Distances are deceptive.  Anchorage is an hour away from Fairbanks, same with Galena.  Kotz, Nome, and Barrow are around 2 hours away (Barrow can be longer).

The slope run, as well as the 3 other long runs are once a day, all others are at least twice a day.   Keep in mind the map is not to scale (so some distances appear incorrectly).  We cover a large footprint if you were to overlay our route map on the continental US (Alaska would stretch from Florida to Canada and to California if you counted the Aluetians and the pan handle).  At least that's how I remember the map overlay I was shown...   

[Frank N. O.]

I actually meant both pictures of Denali since there seems to be a mountain in the back of both. Fantastic view though on all pictures 

I actually did think the nose on that L-100 didn't really look tall enough to be a Herc, but I don't have that much knowledge about that type of planes, luckily someone else here does 

Frank

[fireflyr]

Baradium, the first 99s we got did not have cargo pods or autopilots, we flew them single pilot which was pretty tiresome on the OAK-SEA runs in the winter time.
Brian, I'm here to tell you that the A model Hercs have "some spar problems" too, I lost 3 friends a couple of years back on a fire in California when their Herc shed both wings    Don't believe I'd set foot in one of them sumbitches!

[Baradium]

I actually meant both pictures of Denali since there seems to be a mountain in the back of both. Fantastic view though on all pictures 

I actually did think the nose on that L-100 didn't really look tall enough to be a Herc, but I don't have that much knowledge about that type of planes, luckily someone else here does 

Frank

Oh, you mean the one to the left?  I forget the name of that mountain, but it's a mountain there.  It's actually supposed to be tougher to climb than Denali.  They've already lost some climbers on that one (not Denali) this year, seems it's much more dangerous because it's so much steeper.  They get avalanches on that one that they won't see so often on the big one.  It's not quite as tall as Denali (which has twin peaks), but it definately sticks out.

I just figured it was a quirk of the A model because all the ones I see are later.