Hi All,  The Super Cub was the first to sell so I am moving forward with the house.  So far the foundation is complete, the subfloor is down and they are building walls.  I wish I could say everything is going smoothly but I think it is very difficult to find people in this industry that put the effort I do into making the customer happy.  I have had to get a little pissy/pushy to get what I want, establish what I expect to see and how I want to be treated.  It's to early to say whether it has done any good but I refuse to take second place to a contractors ongoing problems with time management.

I figured I should probably give some details as to why I am selling one of my airplanes.  I will only be selling one, which ever one sells first will decide which one I will keep.

I am about to build what I consider to be my dream home and with that in mind  I will be flying less over the next two years.  I plan on doing most of the finish work myself which will require most of my free time.  Over the last couple of years I have not had a mortgage and I like the idea of keeping it that way so my goal is to build the house and put a lot of sweat equity into it.

I figure I would be happy to keep either airplane and the odds are better that one will sell if both are for sale.

I have been busy with life and let this slide too long.  I have not been flying as much as I would like.  This summer Lisa and I made a trip up to the Puget Sound with Bushwacker.  We spent time hitting the different Islands and had a nice time.  It is great to have an airplane to do this kind of stuff, if I had to hassel with driving and ferries I would probably just miss out.  I did have an issue with the FAA, my own fault I might add, in the end it worked out,  they added a couple of violations to my file.  I probably got off easy and I would attribute it to being honest with them from the start and admitting to the offense. 

 

I also did a trip to the Idaho Backcountry with a good friend Doug Keller.  We spent the first night at Lord Flats (Oregon) with a bunch of other pilots, I think we had a total of 14 airplanes there that night, probably some kind of record.  We then headed for Moose Creek, this would be home base, our plan was to float the Selway River in kick boats from Shearer Airstrip to the Moose Creek Airstrip.  We used his Cessna 180 and my Supercub and ferried the gear to Shearer.  I think we got started around 9:00 am and floated and fished our way down the river, the fishing was excellent.  The water in August is low enough you can do this and no permit is required by then.  It is hard to tell how far you covered so by 2:00 in the afternoon we were getting concerned about how much more time we could spend fishing and pretty much mad it our goal to get to Moose Creek.  This would be an excellent 2 day trip we made it in a day, it is only around 9 airmiles but the river is not very direct so who knows how many river miles.  We got off the water about 5:30 just in time for a major thunder storm, other then that It was a blast and we will do this again for sure.

Here is a run down on the 1^st time Bush Geo Cache Hosted by Paul and Donna Claus of Ultima Thule Lodge.  It was by invitation only so just being asked to participate I felt honored.  The event was broke up into two full days of flying.  The first day everyone received 6 eggs (eggs were chosen because they would not have to be retrieved when the event was over), we all had 6 hours to put out six eggs, each egg had the pilots initials and a secret word know by only the pilot and his spotter.

 

The area to place the eggs was set up to be a maximum of a 25 mile radius from Ultima Thule and then it was broken down into 4 sectors to give some aircraft separation to begin with.  Every pilot was given a sector and the first egg had to be put out somewhere in that first sector a minimum of 10 miles out, after that you could go anywhere you wanted to.  You could spend as much time as you liked hiking, climbing, swimming etc. to find the ultimate place for your eggs or just land and step out of the airplane, placing the egg right where you landed.

 

I left April 27th Alaska bound, it took the usual 3 days of flying to go from Vancouver, WA. to Ultima Thule Lodge in the Wrangells.  I flew inland making stops for fuel at Abottsford B.C., Williams Lake, Smithers, Dease Lake, White Horse, and into Gulkana, Ak. for last stop.  I  headed for UTL for my first days in Alaska, I can never get enough of this beautiful place.  Spring was just getting under way and by the end of my stay (May 18th) the transformation was apparent.  I then headed for the work portion of my visit, I had a booth at the Alaskan Airmens Show and for two days I talked airplanes with a lot great people. 

 

After the Airmen's show I needed to do some laundry, buy my bear tag and a few other odds and ends before heading back out to Ultima Thule Lodge.  Paul and Donna Claus were hosting the first of it's kind, a Bush Flying Geo Cache.  Paul invited a handful of friends for this first time event, in the end 7 pilots with airplanes competed in this challenging 2 day event.  The rules made it very interesting, it was not set up based just on the best pilot and airplane, actually the person who could possibly win might just be a  great mountaineer or climber (or well rounded outdoor person).  There was a lot of strategy and with that came a different game plan by each team.  I will go into more detail in another blog on the point system, how the game was played, who won and what they received.

I am leaving with the Got Rocks Super Cub on Monday.  If you have any interest in stalking my where-abouts I have a Spot set up with tracking,  click on this link:

 

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/gogl.jsp?glId=0IeXKRT0pFOOKPMMX8HPuJeEX6V3SZGfY

 

 

                                     Experimental High Performance Brake Pad

I came up with these brake pads after making brake pads for the rotor brake for a leading helicopter manufacturer.  I was contracted to machine backing plates, brake pads, brake disc and caliper housings for a company that I have been doing work for, for almost 20 years now.  I also did brake disc overhaul for this company, too.  About ten years ago, I realized that when I would get the brake disc in the shop for overhaul, which required surface grinding the disc to clean up,  I could usually make them good with very little grinding (.003- .006 under original dimension). 

Here is a question I am asked fairly often: Do you give instruction in bush flying. 

 

Short answer is "NO" 

 

I will be adding some footage to the blog so check back!

 

I have been slowly working up to doing the off airport stuff that challenges my skills with the Super Cub, although I have the sight picture and knowledge to land places with Bushwacker it is not a perfect fit to transition straight into the Cub. You still have to know the airplane (wear it so to speak) and that only comes with a lot of practice.  I spent to much time putting the airplane together to just go out and wreck it because I should be able to land in the same places with a Super Cub that a Maule can.  I am just now starting to feel at home in it and I have around a little over 40 hours.  I posted a little youtube video of it. Make sure to watch in the high quality if you can. Enjoy!