Clear

[SuberAvid 617]

My son and a friend have caribou tags for an area that I hadn't been into for several years so I thought I better go scout it out.  I had not trailered the Avid + and had not really worked to get the wings to fold back fully so it took some time to trim things and make parts and covering accessories.  It always makes me nervous to trailer the plane and It never seems to come out of it without some kind of rash or damage from the coverings or something.

 

I had hit a rock with my TW that I didn't see on landing a couple of weeks ago and it tweeked the machined shoulder and bent the 1/4" bolt that holds the Matco dual fork arms to the pivot body plus cracked one half of the wheel.  I replaced the bolt and ordered a new wheel but it didn't arrive when I left so I thought it would be OK if I took it easy.  Well the trailering got the best of it and took it to the point of near failure so I had to really take it easy and could not risk landing on anything rough out in the middle of nowhere.  A bummer because there were some real interesting places I would like to have landed.  It is going to get welded solid this weekend.

 

Anyway, here are some pictures from the trip.  I think I figured out how to comment with the pictures so will give that a try.

Arriving at Clear, about 3:00 AM

A huge paved and lighted runway plus plenty of gravel and almost no planes.  Nice launch point and place to camp.

An old Gov strip south of Fairbanks

Some of the hills coming back from scouting, pretty bumpy this time of day

East of Healy

A sad looking KF.  I can remember this one being for sale at Birchwood when I just was taking my training.  It has an 0235 in it.  Sure sad looking now.

A hard landing; I think it has always had grove gear on it so be sure you reinforce this area

Is this a 7AC Champ "Experimental"  This guy is into wing mods (like I should talk)

I though maybe we could ask him to give some tips on wiring to our EAA chapter

Must be some future wanabe airplane motors waiting for wings

That evening I flew west out to the Kantishna R.  We took a couple of boats out here several years ago moose hunting.  It took us days and 100's of miles of roads and rivers to get to this point found our camp spot on Clear Creek

Kantishna across from hunting camp

Confluence of the Kantishna and Toklat Rivers.  We got one of the boats stuck on the sandbar under water here.  Good thing we had two boats.

Toklat River, very neat for landing spots

Wishing I had a good TW about now

Flew the Toklat all the way into Denali park.  So nice when the winds calm down and can cruise along a 3 gph on the deck.  Love that! 

Turned back for Clear about midnight.  Awsome night sky!

More sky; sunset or sunrise?

I guess there is reason for that nice runway after all; someone needed it.  About 1:00 AM when I landed back at Clear

Edited 15 Jul 2014 by SuberAvid

[akflyer 1427]

Sweet trip report Randy!  Looks like you had a great time.  That must have been a pretty good rock to take out that tail wheel!

 

[marshawk 82]

Very cool , beautiful pictures as usualI ,noticed you seem to have got your wings folded pretty much straight back, do you have some way of attaching you wing to the tail section, the kitfox would attach back there with roughly a 2 foot  piece of 4130 to hold the wings from swaying but  the avid + doesnt seem to have any tabs for it

[Luked 71]

Thanks again for sharing your pictures. Your posts always give us lower 48ers some new perspective and familiarity with what Alaska is like.

 

In the beginning, I wasn't thinking of retaining the wing fold feature since my plane will live at the airport. My friend is building his Magnum without folding capability. I've been thinking more and more that it would be nice to have occasionally though. This is a good example.

 

Luke D.

[akflyer 1427]

Being able to fold the wings and bring it home in the event that you prang it is NICE!  or if you prang it out on the woods and have to heli it out...  When I was looking at having to heli mine out (maybe) the heli operator was stoked I could just fold the wings and he would not have to worry about it trying to fly away under him.. I wanted to be in he plane so if he had to punch it I could have flown the as yet unharmed plane to yet another unscheduled landing.. He was not to keen on that Idea

 

[EDMO 1078]

I think the folding wings is about the best feature of these planes.  Shit Happens - and you are better off with another option -  As the old saying goes:  "Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it".

Building one without the folding feature is like camping without toilet paper - You never know when you might need it.

Hanger space around Merrill Field at Anchorage was around $1000 a month 20 years ago, and you might wait that long to get one - Being Southern-born, I had much rather have mine in a heated garage there and leave the car outside, rather than go shovel the snow off of the wings every few days in Alaska.  Keeps the bird shit off of the engine and Moose antlers out of the wings too!  

Randy, I always enjoy your photos and hearing about your trips - I never got drawn for a Caribou tag - wife has a hide hanging on the wall tho!

EDMO

Edited 16 Jul 2014 by Ed In Missouri

[Guest]

Indeed.

 

 

 

Very nice photos by the way!

 

[EDMO 1078]

Great photo Chris - do they fly faster with wings folded???  Better gas mileage too!

EdMO

[Bandit 286]

Cruise mode!

[Av8r3400 1179]

Like an F-14 or F-111?

 

[EDMO 1078]

How about the rest of the story, ChrisB?  There has to be something of interest in that photo........

EDMO

[SuberAvid 617]

I think the wing fold feature is excellent and I sure would not build without it.  Ther is no negative to having it.  I had to weld in the tabs on my Avid+ since it didn't have them in the fuselage.  I put them just behind the front tube of the VS in horizontal line with the HS.  The tieback tubes I just built out of 1/2" EMT, flattened and bent the ends to fit.

 

It is sure nice to be able to trailer as well as for emergencies; and just for trips like this one, you can haul plenty of gas and a comfortable place to sleep when you want to.  I trailered my Avid to the North Slope; had the engine out on the 670 up there and was able to trailer it home.  Another time a buddy and I were using his cub to hunt out of Clear and weather shut down on the south side of the AK Range while we were there.  We spent several days trying to wait it out but finally left the plane there and drove home to process the meat.  I about had him convinced he needed a folding wing cub.  It was another week before weather let up so he could go back and retrieve his plane.

 

The TW took a good hit alright, enough to crack the wheel half.  Strange thing is I didn't see the rock at all; I thought I had cleared them easily.  Just goes to show you have to have tough gear out there.  The bolt on fork arms are just not tough enough in the long run IMHO, but welding them solid to the pivot block should do the trick and I wont have to worry about it again.  I think the casting of the single arm is a lot stronger than the bolt on fork arms but I prefer the fork to keep from the torque on the tail spring.  I just need to make it more robust.

 

That in-flight folding wing option is interesting; maybe I could cruise over 100 with that feature.     Great picture Chris.

[Luked 71]

Sounds like I should suggest to my friend that he convert his plane back to having the folding capability. I think he might still be able to fold the wings, but I think it may require some dis-assembly now.

[Guest]

That's my Magnum. It got away from me landing at Minam in Oregon. I'd been there many many times before. It is one of my favorite "close" places to go to the middle of nowhere. I can be there tent set up, relaxing with a cold one, or kayaking in the minam river in less than 2 hours.

 

For some reason shit hit the fan on that particular landing and I balled it up.

 

There are no roads for miles in any direction. The only way in is a very long hike or on horseback. It cost me $2000.00 to get it lifted out. Would have been a lot more if I hadn't been able to rig the plane for airlift myself. As it turns out the heli drivers responsibility ends at the tow hook, so I was able to prep the plane for airlift myself .

 

The heli driver never landed. He took off from Baker City, flew to Minam where a friend clipped the tow hook to my plane, flew it to LaGrande where I was waiting with a trailer, dropped it on the trailer with us guiding it with the tag lines you see in the photo, unclipped electronically from his cockpit and headed back to Baker City. I never met him in person. It was all set up over the phone. He is one helluva pilot! It took him exactly an hour to do the round trip from Baker back to Baker and that hour cost $2000.00. I drove my plane home from LaGrande on the trailer. The Magnum is now a work in progress.

 

I learned a lot going through that experience and everything I learned is very valuable. But it was and still is expensive schooling!

[SuberAvid 617]

Hi Chris,

 

What points did you hook to for the lift with the wings folded?

 

My Dad took me (and my brother) on our first deer hunts at Minam lodge when we each reached our 12th BD (legal big game hunting age in OR).  Flew in from Baker and hunted out on horseback.  A great time for a kid and great memories.  There used to be Minam lodge and Red's Horse Ranch, sort of across the river from each other.  Are you landing at one of those places or on another strip?

[Guest]

I built a harness that pulled in a triangle from both sides of the front spar carry through and back to the tail. the tricky part was guestimating the center of gravity with the wings folded so it would lift level. Fortunately I guessed right. The dead tree  hanging from the tail was a suggestion of the heli pilot to act as a drogue to produce some drag so the plane would track straight during the flight. Everything worked quite well. It was a lot more challenging, noisy and windy than I imagined to grab the tag lines and position the plane to be set down on the trailer in the right spot.

 

I was landing at Minam.