Anyone who is not a member of AOPA ought to get a copy of this month's AOPA Pilot.
Read the story entitled "After the Accident." It is the first case of a pilot being charged (and subsequently convicted) of "vehicular" homicide when a passenger died in an accident. Anyone who flies passengers should read this one. ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of lordjoe_com Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2008 1:37 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ercoupe-flyin] Flying to Alaska - the return Importance: Low Eight years ago my wife and i flew our Ercoupe to Alaska. http://www.lordjoe.com. <http://www.lordjoe.com.> This year we are returning. I will post messages periodically. This covers the trip from Seattle to Whitehorse Yukon, Traveling to Canada - June 2008 After we found out that my wife had a job starting July 1, we decided that it was time to take the rest of June as a vacation. The plan is to fly our Ercoupe into Northern BC and perhaps Southern Alaska. The first problem is weather. Seattle June, 08 was so bad that the Seattle paper had a headline proclaiming that Seattle was colder than Fairbanks Alaska, Colder then Frostbite Fall Minnesota, Colder than Siberia. It was also wet, cloudy and miserable. After looking at not great weather reports, after my wife had muttered about a driving vacation, we postponed for day and chose the best day in awhile. Not great but better then the rest of the week. he predication was cloudy in the morning then improving except for the destination, Port Hardy ad the northern edge of Vancouver Island which promised light rain throughout the day. We went to airport to discover that Paine Field, where I keep my plane was still IFR with low clouds. Since Paine is on a plateau1), we could get a special clearance, take off and at least have sane minima. We waited for an hour and that got a special as the weather, especially to the North was clearing. By the time we hit the San Juan Islands, the sun was shining. We had flight following into Nanaimo, where we met Jeremy Howard. He has an Ercoupe and has recently bought an RV. We chatted about flying in Canada with him and a couple of buddies from the Nanaimo Flying Club. We chatted for an hour or so and then decided to go on to Port Hardy. We were briefed and warned about moderate turbulence and light rain in the Port Hardy area. We flew up the BC Coast staying under clouds at 2500 feet or so. We passed Comox, a large military base, about 30 miles up the coast, Campbell River. After Campbell River, the character of the trip changed. The road went inland. The wide straight to the mainland became a twisted web of narrow passages with a single channel heading north. With higher ceilings, we might have gone up and flown direct. Under the current conditions the best course was to stay over the water following the channel. We flew east for about forth miles, essentially perpendicular to the course. The country got a lot more rugged. There were no roads, no habitation, no nothing. The passage is just gorgeous. We passed two cruise ships heading the other way down the passage. The sides descend several thousand feet without a break into the coastal mountains. Wind sweeping down the valleys badly tosses my light plane. Finally, about 15 miles from the next airport we hit a slid sheet of heavy rain. Visibility dropped to less than a mile. Shortly after entering the rain we looked at each other and made a 180 degree turn back to Campbell River. Back pas the cruise ships. Back past the turbulence. Back 60 miles for Campbell river. How does defeat affect a man? How, even knowing you have made the correct choice, does it feel to turn back short of your goal. Why is is so much more tiring to have almost made your goal than to have flown twice as long and hard without incident We landed at Campbell River, rented a car and a room and had a well-deserved beer. We retired to the room with a bottle of Canadian Merlot to watch the channel, right below the room. We watched the cruise ships pass. We watched the barge loaded with logs pass. We will look at the weather again tomorrow. It is not predicted to be good. Saturday, after tomorrow is. Friday June 13 - We awakened to a glorious day. The sun was shining, there were few clouds visible and over then, the tops of the coastal range. We packed up and headed for the airport. There the briefing offered no good news. To the north it was cloudy with light rain. To the west there was little data and some evidence from reports at Whistler that we would not be able to come down if we were to cross the mountains. When we reached the other side the next day, we learned that all cautions were overstated and we could easily have made it to Anaheim Lake and on to Smithers. As it was we decided that the best weather around was in Campbell River. We found a lovely bed and breakfast on the beach, rerented the car and went for a hike up the Campbell River. The power plant has three large towers, they never say what for but they are several hundred feet high and are topped with a large cylinder for holding water. Saturday, the 14th was even nicer. Even without weather reports from the interior, the satellite pictures showed that we could get over the mountains and down. The last time I flew the Homatka River, I flew under the clouds. This time I went up, over the clouds, over the glaciers and the ice field. The view was spectacular, the ride smooth. Somehow, Verna was troubled. She kept saying she felt safer the first time when we were sheltered in the valley and could not contemplate the vast majesty of the entire range. We flew past a huge peak with a glacier in a U shaped valley extending miles into the terrain below. Finally we dropped through a valley to the high plain below. We landed at Anaheim Lake - a fishing camp and refueling station. Then there was the long flight across a high plan with lakes, marshes and a lot of nothing. One thing was very apparent from the air, the forests in middle BC are dying. The trees have some kind of an infestation and a huge fraction of the evergreens are brown and dying. We eventually landed in Smithers BC having been tossed around for several hours, Verna announced that we were spending a day on the ground. It was a lot of fun. we rented a car and had a nice hike up one of the mountains in the provincial park. The next day we had two of the toughest legs on the trip. First we flew the Cassiar highway from Smithers to Dease Lake. It is 270 miles and while there are several airports on the route, none of then have fuel (officially). The distance is well within the range of the coupe assuming no headwinds and everything goes right. The route is clear and you are following a road but the first third you are really not flying directly toward your destination. I spend much of the trip looking at the airspeed and the estimated time. Yes we had a modest headwind. Yes we made it with lots of fuel to spare after three hours, twenty minutes. We got to Dease Lake and the folks came out of the FBO to take pictures of the coupe. They were very nice and loaned us a van to drive in to town for lunch. The next leg was shorter and should have been a piece of cake except we spent the first 40 minutes arguing over which valley we needed to follow. The last time we flew Dease Lake to Whitehorse it was in the other direction and with no ceiling we dialed in the GPS and flew over everything. This time there was a 6000 ft ceiling so some navigation was needed. Eventually we found the right valley. By the end of the trip we were dodging showers and one thunderstorm. Fortunately the valley was a wide and we did not get wet. By the time we got to Whitehorse it was time for another day on the ground.
