Merry Christmas!

Have a great day everyone! Know that we are thinking of you all and would wish you well in person if we could.

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Big Iron

Nice shot of Asiana Cargo on final in Anchorage. Not really a desire of mine to fly a bird so big, but I can sure appreciate the engineering feat of something that large flying through the air. Amazing. As I recall these planes at gross takeoff weight are about 750,000 pounds. That's 375 Tons. Or more than 7 DC-6's at gross weight. Guess that's why they call them "heavy".

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The Forecast is...

You just know it will be a great day when this is view before you even depart!

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Entrepreneur (at the day job)

Entrepreneur Steve at his day job of flight engineer for us. He's working on his collapsible, hollow walking stick design. Good luck with that buddy. Don't quit your day job just yet!

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Engine Analyzer

This is an oscilloscope used by us as an 'engine analyzer'. Each airplane has it's own installed so that we can see any spark plug in any cylinder. At 36 plugs per engine, and four engines, that means we can see any one of 144 at spark plugs while they are running. This is an abnormal pattern showing an open secondary on one cylinder. Usually caused by a bad spark plug or lead. The other side looked fine so we kept on going, and left this engine running!

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On Village Time

SO the other day we go to Barrow with a load of mail. Our return flight is slated to be a full load of drill tools back to Deadhorse. We had already taken a half load back the other day and the rest was left on the ramp. When we arrive in Barrow, the loader operator ( a Mexican man by the name Ted) and I have this conversation....

Ted- 'hey, you gonna take those pipe?'

Me - 'you mean tools?'

T- yeah

M- well yeah, whatever will fit...

Ted then looks where the tools should be, then back at me and asks 'well where they go?'

Keep in mind that it is winter in full up here. Those tools and pallets were right where Ted left them. Only now they were under a six foot drift of snow. The size of the load? If you picture four big Buicks all clumped together, with six feet of hard-packed drifted snow on top, that would about do it.

I tell Ted that the tools are right there where he left them. He looks back at the snow drift, then up at me with a pained expression, cold winter wind blowing in his face, and says "Oh man, somebody gonna haf to dig them out!"

The humor here is that the station knew we were coming, knew the tools were buried, and knew they would need to get a bucket loader going to move that snow. That's the difference between 'normal' time and 'village' time. "It will happen when it happens...or maybe not...whatever." We then waited about 35 minutes or so for them to round up a couple bucket loaders and clear away the snow for us/themselves. We got the job done though, and everyone won!

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Fresh layer on an Ice Field

What you are looking at is the reason I won't panic about glaciers melting. Snow falls, packs down, turns to glacier and moves on out. All winter this happens, and remember that winter up here usually goes from October to May. Early this fall we were seeing evidence of this process.
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Quieter than Normal

A great view this morning returning from Bethel. Guess our captain decided he had seen it all before and opted for the power snooze. Which was fine with the flight engineer and I, as we were tired of listening to Captain Cantankerous gripe anyway.

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The River

Clear view of the river. The hidden image being the cloud shadows on the water. Such a nice day!

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Fresh Steam

Fresh steam off the top of the mountain today. A whiff of sulfur in the air too. Hope she keeps her temper!

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Rainbow Propeller

 The humidity was just so, and the sunlight as well, and we get this neat looking rainbow effect aound the prop. Glad my camera could pick it up in the daybright.

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The Terrain Below

Just taking in the view makes this job fun. Notice the way the fog in the lower photos is funneled into the valleys? Sometimes if the temperature or wind is just right, the movement is visible even at 9 thousand feet. Nothing like seeing miles of rolling fog down there.

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Weather front in action

 Every once in a while you get to see weather in action. This was one of those times.  You can see clear definition of the front. This layer was only pretty thin, and there was just a hint of turbulence when we crossed that line. Once we flew out from underneath, the Sun was there to greet us and I came away with this great photo!

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