Where are you taking your Cub

[CV60]

Over Black Lake, Louisiana. Gotta hustle and get down at Natchitoches, as I'm burning daylight!



Approaching Natchitoches, LA (KIER) at the end of the day:

[Lewis - A2A]

Nice shots, maybe its just because its that time of year here in the UK but the shots look cold hehe. Smashing atmosphere

[taildraggin68]

A little STOL fun.....A few low passes and go-arounds due to too much energy, but getting reacquainted with the cub

[CV60]

I bought the Cub an hour or two after learning it was available.

My first flight was my normal sightseeing run from my home airport in Bonham Tx, west along the river to highway 75, then down the highway to downtown Dallas. Around the downtown area, fly through the "keyhole" in that one building there, then back up 75 to highway 121 back to Bonham. This my my default test flight.

I thought about recreating Flight of Passage again but didn't want to read the book yet again. So I decided to make the return flight from California back to New Jersey using my own flight plan. Highway 8, 10, 20, 30, 40, 81, 78 and I'm already at Kingsport on highway 81 after 33 hours of flying. I even got in a bit of night flying under a full moon including my first night flight over downtown Dallas.

I forgot how much fun it was to fly the Cub. Even after 12,000 hours in the sim I'm still learning something new every time I fly, and the Cub is teaching me even more then usual.

When I flew over Knoxville I noticed the SunSphere, which was a prominent location in a book I recently read, and I didn't remember what city it was in or that I might be flying over it. Prepar3D is So Cool!

Not sure where I'll go next after New Jersey.

Hook

Nice flight. You should post some of your adventures. You have got me thinking: I may try doing a "Cannonball Run" NY to LA in as short of time as possible. The trick would be that it would have to be in good weather in the summer, in order to get a decent time. And the prevailing winds are in the wrong direction.

[Hook]

Thanks for the good words.

The Cannonball Run... imagine yourself like that one guy who did the Run in a Studebaker one year. Other people will be using something like the civilian Mustang to get the best times, like driving one of the cars specially equipped for the Run. For example, a guy I worked with was friends with Randall P Martin (RPM!) who had a tricked out Mustang with steerable aircraft landing lights and a radar jammer that he used on the Cannonball Run. "The highway patrol didn't believe the 55 mph..."

Don't worry about the weather. Fly anyway. The idea isn't to get the best time (you won't beat the Mustangs) but to actually finish the race. If you just count the hours actually spent flying, everyone who does this can compare their times.

My flights don't tend to have a lot of high points to make a good story, and I'm using stock scenery so screen shots won't be all that impressive. However...

On the previous leg of my flight (I decided to fly south down the coast) the headwinds at any altitude above 1000 were severe. So, I flew at about 800 feet, and over the water to help maintain separation from habitation. My wind correction angle was 30 degrees, estimated by eye of course. At least this kept me under the overcast. I'm currently south of Norfolk.

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[taildraggin68]

A little barnstorming?

[CV60]

Just landed in Lafayette, LA (KLFT). My flight is chronicled here: https://mutleyshangar.com/forum/index.p ... /#comments

[Hook]

I continued flying down the coast to Key West, then to Cuba, to SABA and ended up in Martinique. And I just went over 100 hours in the Cub.

SABA was an interesting landing. About 8 knots wind, but I couldn't get on the runway, probably because of ground effect. On the fourth attempt I stalled several feet above the parking area and got the Cub planted hard on the ground. I'm guessing the proper way to land the Cub there is to ride the edge of a stall all the way to the runway, as slipping had little effect. The problem is, there is a hill in line with the approach end of the runway with trees. Real airport there has a much better approach. The challenge is to do it with stock scenery.

Several months ago I got the Aerosoft BeaverX on the runway on the third attempt in somewhat higher winds and no controlled crashing. I planted the mains on the runway and stood on the brakes.

Hook

[Mickel]

There is a TNCM scenery with Saba included (and St Barts). Should be easily do-able with that. And it's just plain better to look at.

I've just hit Bowling Green, Kentucky. Either Cairo or Sikeston next. I make stop/goes or touch and goes at some of the strips I pass along the way. That will be more common as I reach Orbx-land proper.

[Hook]

Merrill Pass, Alaska!

I left the wheeled Cub in the Caribbean and did the Merrill Pass flight from PASV to 9AK3. This is a challenging flight depending on the weather and I've made it many times in the Cub.

All I knew about the weather before I started was that it was COLD (-25C), cloudy, little wind and no areas marked with reduced visibility. I figured I could land on my skis anywhere if I decided I couldn't continue.

After getting the Cub set up and reloaded with the oil at ambient temperature, I gave it a try. I was actually able to get the Cub started by hand propping it. Procedure: fuel on, mags off, carb heat on, throttle about 20%, prime 3 times, pull the prop through 10 blades. Mags on, didn't wanna start. Prime 3 more times, got it started right away. I was shocked.

Many minutes spent at 700 RPM waiting for the oil temp to get above 40F. When it finally got there, RPM 900, oil pressure about 50 psi. When it got warm enough to increase RPM I discovered that I couldn't go above 1000 or the plane would start moving. I had to take off with oil temperature below 60, and it should be around 100. Oil pressure got well above 60, "red line" is 54 and I'm gonna pretend that's only for cruise flight. I guess I warmed up for 15 minutes total but it wasn't gonna get any warmer.

Aloft on a course of about 80 degrees for 44 nautical miles, I had to dodge around hills east of the airport. Wasn't too bad but I had to stay below the clouds. During the flight to the bend in the river where I'd turn to 35 degrees for 19 minutes there were areas of clouds that went all the way to the ground. Looks like fog acts like fog, actually works better in the sim as fog, but it wasn't just fog's reduced visibility, it was actual clouds. I dodged as much as I could, but getting close to the river I couldn't avoid them.

Got turned to 35 degrees and ran into almost continuous cloud cover at ground level. I was flying with only occasional glimpses of a horizon, sometimes with only occasional glimpses of trees 100 feet below me, and sometimes in complete white-out. I couldn't see the hills on either side. I can fly well enough with needle-ball-and-airspeed, but I'm missing a needle and ball. Oh well, typical day in the life of a bush pilot.

I had just decided I was gonna put down on the skis, pitch a tent with a heater and wait it out. A few seconds before I was adjacent to the valley where I'd be turning right (93 degrees for 7 nm) the clouds lifted enough that I could actually see the valley. Flying up the valley and through the pass itself wasn't too bad, skimming the bottom of the clouds. Through the pass was 63 deg 2 nm, 122 deg 1 nm, then turn 78 degrees for 8 nm and I'm over the lake. By this time the weather was almost clear and I'm 500 feet below the clouds. 70 deg for 23 nm then 105 deg for 25 nm and I'm at 9AK3.

The Cub heater wasn't all that bad. I was getting around 47 to 48 degrees fahrenheit over outside air temperature, making the cabin a balmy 55 degrees. That's t-shirt and shorts weather in Alaska.

Oil temperature never did get to 100 degrees, but oil pressure stayed below red line, around 47 psi most of the flight. Oil temp ran from 75 to about 95. Our temperate weather oil ain't gonna work for this, we're gonna need some winter weight oil to keep the oil pressure within reason. If I spend much time flying in Alaska winter I'll code that, already got it for another aircraft.
(Note that I've got my gauges calibrated to read the same as the tooltips. The tooltip numbers are more likely to be correct. Scott has my code if he wants to put it in an update.)

Clicking Cold Start will immediately set the cabin temperature to ambient, but the oil temperature doesn't seem to change unless you save the flight after Cold Start, then reload it, or reload the aircraft. Sometimes this is what you want considering how hard it is to start a cold soaked engine. I suspect it has to do with how fast the oil temperature changes.

When I took off from PASV the skis didn't make any sound on the runway. When I landed at 9AK3 the skis sounded like they were on gravel, but it didn't affect the plane. Maybe I should have landed on the bare ground beside the runway, which had apparently been cleared of snow.

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[Hook]

I decided my next flight would be Talkeetna to Ruth Glacier on Denali. When I checked the charts, I found I could fly to Talkeetna from 9AK3 in one leg, then decided I'd have enough fuel to get all the way to the glacier and back to PATK.

Temp was 18 F, not too bad. Got the engine started in a couple of tries, then waited forever for the oil to heat up, idling at 1000 RPM. Finally got it to a reasonable point and took off. I limited my RPM to about 1800 on takeoff (cold weather helped) and actually kept the oil pressure at the 54 max. Plenty of power to take off under those conditions. Slowly increased power as the oil warmed up.

Up the coast, up the Susitna River, past PATK and on to Denali. Clouds were reported broken at 3500 feet, and I wasn't sure if I'd have to get higher to get to the point on the glacier that I wanted. As I was nearing my destination the clouds started to break up and I got up to 4000 feet. Turns out the destination was around 3100.

It is near impossible to land on ice or snow because you can't tell where the ground is. Similar to landing on a glassy lake, especially if the visibility isn't all that great: 17 miles in my case. Heck, I couldn't see the mountain from Talkeetna!

I got down on the glacier OK, figured I could turn sideways to the slope and get the plane stoped. Well maybe. I might have had more luck going to an outside view to do this. I turned off the mags, the Cub started sliding around and eventually was heading downhill backwards. I couldn't get it turned around, so I pulled the prop, got the engine running, turned around and took off downhill. I was over halfway back to Talkeetna before my oil temperature got up high enough that the oil pressure got down to max.

Flight back was uneventful, landed successfully at PATK after figuring out I was initially looking at the wrong airport.

Looks like I'm going to have to do that Arctic Weight oil mod. Ninety weight, anyone? At least a worn engine will sound good.

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[Hook]

Visibility one mile, ceiling 400 feet overcast.

I'm not sure I'd try flying the Beaver into that, but somehow it's just right for the Cub.

Since my last post I've swapped out the skis for tundra tires, flown to PABG PAEN PAHO PADQ and finally to PAKN. That's the private airstrip at Beluga, Kenai, Homer, Kodiak and King Salmon. At Homer I swapped out the tundra tires for regular wheels; I figured I wouldn't be doing much off field landing. I almost regretted that.

These various flights were uneventful, but the flight into King Salmon got interesting. The radio report said the above, but I just checked Active Sky and it shows half that. It wasn't actually too bad at about 200 feet, I could see well enough even with one mile visibility and I couldn't see any clouds at all: the sky was totally grey without definition. There were no airports anywhere close, and the only one I could have used for an alternate was a private strip that was under the same conditions. This is where I wondered if I should have kept the tundras in case I had to do an emergency landing.

As I approached my destination, I started seeing some buildings, not enough to call it a town though. I passed over what I thought was a large lake, but it turned out to be the river that runs beside the airport. I just couldn't see far enough to tell it was a river rather than a lake. A couple minutes later I saw a good road, figured it was going to the airport and turned in that direction. When I checked the chart it showed the road and I realized I'd need to turn back to the river. No problems finding the airport in any case.

Eventually I want to arrive at Dutch Harbor but I'm already having problems finding airports close enough together that also have fuel. Still havin' a good time though.

Hook

[taildraggin68]

That's where the extra gas can in the front seat would come in handy......a little more gas to get you there, or at least a shorter walk and keeping the tundra tires on saves a little heart ache if you must use that gravel road or convenient field.

[Hook]

King Salmon to Port Heiden (PAPH).

Weather promised low ceilings (150 feet or less) and snow, visibility under 3 miles at a few points, but both departure and destination were reasonably clear. Perfect flying weather for the Cub!

I watched the approach of the snow clouds, seemed like a *long* time but that had something to do with 62 knots airspeed. It didn't look too bad and I could fly under them if I didn't mind getting close to the waves.

Got into some precipitation. Looked too small to be snowflakes... noise on the windscreen indicated hail. OK, not too bad. Then I noticed I was losing altitude. Increased throttle, applied back pressure on the stick, hardly helped. Eventually was down about 10 mph indicated air speed and much higher throttle than I was used to. Hey! That wasn't hail, that was hail mixed with freezing rain! I was accumulating ice.

Choices were land, turn back or soldier on. I'd recently passed from fairly clear ground to a lot of clutter, so landing wasn't good idea. If I turned back, the only place to go was my departure airport, and there was no indication that the weather would get better any time soon. Precipitation was intermittent. I kept flying, figuring if nothing else I'd get my fifth forced landing due to ice.

At the worst point my airspeed was down to 55 mph, throttle was almost full, carb heat didn't seem to be doing much to help. Like Alice in Wonderland, I was climbing as fast as I could just to stay at the same altitude. I started looking for landing spots. That's about the time the precipitation stopped.

Performance slowly returned to normal. I was a bit worried that I'd used so much fuel I couldn't make it to Port Heiden and looked at a possible landing at Pilot Point (PAPN), but decided it wasn't that much farther. Not a lot of options for airstrips.

Landed without problems on a gravel runway (who needs tundra tires?) and got refueled. Still had 15% fuel remaining. Not long after I landed it started to snow.

Normally I'd have a gauge that indicated the amount of ice I was carrying. I haven't added that to the Cub yet.

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[Hook]

When planning the flight from Port Heiden to Cold Bay (PACD) the weather map showed clouds, not particular low ceilings, and no precipitation. When I made the flight the weather map showed large ares of precipitation that would appear and disappear after a short time. I was surprised that I didn't have to fly in them.

This was a Good Thing. Near the end of the trip I spent about 5 minutes in the precipitation, and it turned out to be freezing rain. I recognized it a lot quicker this time.

No problems, it was a small area and I'd be through it soon. The area around Cold Bay was partly cloudy and clear, very nice flying weather.

Next stop: Dutch Harbor!

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