Safe and Sound

It was a pretty stressful Wednesday night wondering what circumstances my dad was in having “crashed” in a Cessna 208 Caravan II flying between Scammon Bay and Bethel, Alaska.  I’ll try to give you a play by play on what happened to the best of my knowledge.  I haven’t had a chance to directly talk to my dad yet, but this is what I’ve gleaned from conversations with my mom and a message left by my dad on my cell phone.

On their way back to Bethel from Scammon Bay my dad and fellow pilot Brian were flying at about 7,400 feet elevation when the engine failed.  My dad said he was very impressed with how the caravan handled, and that it had a high enough glide ratio to give them time to pick out a suitable place to land.  They ended up putting the plane down on a lake roughly 94 miles from Bethel.  Within 15 minutes of setting the plane down one of the companies other planes flew over checking on them.

dads-plane-crash

The landing couldn’t have been better.  Brian did just a phenomenal job of setting the ski less plane down on the snow covered lake.  During the landing the front landing gears shock was depressed and would not release.  This is the only damage the plane encountered in the emergency landing. They are very lucky the landing gear didn’t buckle.  If it had, the plane would have sustained a substantial amount of damage.

So now they are stranded in the middle of a frozen lake surrounded by miles and miles of bare tundra.  They were able to radio headquarters that they had landed and that neither of them had been injured.  The national guard dispatched a helicopter out to pick them up.  The helicopter got really close to them but there was a pretty bad blizzard that made an air rescue impossible.  Upon hearing the National Guard had scratched their attempted rescue Hageland sent a plane back out to the scene where they dropped some survival gear out the side of the plane for the guys.  They retrieved this gear and headed back to the plane where they were able to get out of the wind and cook up some dinner.  I heard rumors of some humorous talk of the movie “Alive” as they sat in the plane with the wind howling outside.

Meanwhile 45 miles to the west in Chevak a search and rescue team was being mobilized.  A couple of people headed out on snowmachines only to have one of their machines break down so they had to return to Chevak.  Around 1:00 AM a group of 4 riders took off to pick up the two pilots.  While they were on their two hour ride to the crash site, Dad and Brian were catching some zzzz’s in the caravan.  I guess at one point the wind was blowing hard enough to jostle the plane around.  There was some concern that the plane might tip over from the wind gusts.  Usually when a plane is parked the wings are tied down to keep them from being pushed around or over by the wind.  Since they were on a lake the guys were unable to tie the plane down and were at the mercy of the wind.

The search and rescue team from Chevak arrived at the plane around 3:00 in the morning.  My dad was fast asleep and I’m sure snoring like a log (poor Brian).  They had to knock on the side of the plane to wake them up.  The guys hopped on with the search and rescue team and headed back to Chevak arriving just after 6:00 in the morning.

Dad was very impressed with the search and rescue team.  Their command center had a map up with their crash site marked out and a full plan on how they were going to get them rescued.  He said it was a very well run operation.

At some point that morning (Thursday) the guys flew back to Bethel and were back to work.  For a plane “crash” it really couldn’t have gone any better.

Im not 100% positive about their plans to retrieve the airplane, but here is what I think will happen.  Hageland will fly out a mechanic to get the engine working and fix the front landing gear.  They may jack up the plane and put skies on it, or bring in a small bulldozer to clear out a runway for the plane on the ice.  They will then have a pilot with a ferry permit (a permit that allows the plane to be flown dirctly to a shop where it can be completely checked over) fly the plane off the lake back to Bethel or Palmer to have it fixed up and put back into circulation.

UPDATE:  Hageland ended up flying out a replacement engine and changing it out on the frozen lake.  They fixed the minor issues with the front landing gear and were ready to bring it home.  Here’s where it gets fun and a little taste of Alaska.  To get the plane to take off on the snow covered lake the crew cut three sleds (the kind your kids use to slide down hills) in half, put the back end in the front end bolted 2×4’s around as a frame and placed them under each wheel on the plane.  When the plane took off it used them as ski’s.  When they were off the ground the sleds stayed on the ground since they weren’t attached to the plane at all.  The Cessna 207 they used to bring the engine out picked up the sleds as to not leave any trash behind and they both flew back to Bethel.

Dad still has to do his check ride with the company before he can start flying for them.  I hope he is successful in that endevor.  If he is then he’ll finish out the two week shift and then head back to Valdez for a couple weeks off before doing it all over again.  Hopefully the next shift will not include any landings that aren’t on an approved runway. 🙂

Engine Failure

I ended my last post with this line….

“Anyway I wish him the best of luck.  We always say its better to be lucky than good.”

I guess that speaks volumes now because my dad was very lucky.  On April 1st, 2009 at approximately 1:30 PM Alaska time,  my dad was flying from Scammon Bay Alaska to Bethel Alaska when the engine on his Cessna Caravan II failed.  Being a single engine airplane he and the other pilot were without power and had to make an emergency landing.  When an engine goes out on an airplane like that you have very few options on where you are going to land.  Without power they fall out of the sky petty quickly.  They were able to bring the plane down on a frozen lake in the middle of the tundra roughly 90 miles from Bethel.  Luckliy neither of them were injured in the crash.  A national guard helicopter was dispatched from Bethel to rescue them but had to turn around due to bad weather.  The Alaska State Troopers have begun putting together a ground based search party out of Chevak Alaska which was the closest village to the crash site roughly 50 miles away.  There is a pretty bad blizzard working its way through the area so plans were made to drop supplies to help them weather out the storm holed up in the airplane.  I’ll post again when I know more.

dad-plane-crash

My dad has been a pilot since the late 70’s and is a very competent pilot.  This was his second day on the job with Hageland Aviation which has been in service since 1981.  I have flown many a flight with them during my tenure in rural Alaska.  They are a very safe company and I would fly with them any time.  The Cessna Caravan II uses a turboprop engine which usually is very reliable, so it will be interesting to see what caused it to fail.

Dad’s New Job

Well, my dad is starting a new job today.  He hopped aboard a Cessna Caravan in Palmer, Alaska heading for Bethel Alaska.  He is one check ride away from being a Hageland pilot.  It sounds like he’ll have about 4 hours of instruction in a caravan once he arrives in Bethel.  After the instruction time he’ll take a check ride and if he passes he’ll finish out his first “shift”.  A shift I found out is a two week stint.  If he doesn’t pass his check ride he’ll head back to Valdez.  During a shift a pilot can’t fly more than 8 hours a day, but usually work about 12 hours each day.  The rest of the time they are loading up freight into the airplanes and refueling them for their next flights.

Here is what a Cessna Caravan II looks like.

Here is the routes they fly on a pretty regular basis if not every day.

He is really excited about the new job.  This is something he’s always wanted to do.  He got his commercial pilots license a few years ago.  He also has his instructors license, so he is able to give flying lessons and has done so with a couple of guys from Valdez.  One of the cool possabilites of this job is that he may be stationed in Nome which should bring him in and out of St. Michael on a somewhat regular basis.  For those of you who don’t know, that is where my sister is teaching this year.

I do have my concerns about this whole new job…  After having lived in rural Alaska and flying in the inclement weather that frequents the area I worry about some of the situations he may be in.  Frontier Alaska’s rules state that if a pilot is not comfortable flying because of weather they can decline to fly at any time.  The problem is the weather can be really bad a lot of the time, so it turns into the standard operating procedure to go out on days you normally wouldn’t fly in.  This tends to work out fine over and over again, but the one time it doesn’t can be a tragic day.

Anyway I wish him the best of luck.  We always say its better to be lucky than good.

A moment of weakness

With the intense pressure building up on Erin’s shoulders over the purchase of a Dell Mini 9 she encountered a brief moment of weakness one evening sitting next to me on the couch.  I was in the middle of doing my nightly task of going through the steps of building an order for a Dell Mini 9 when Erin sat down next to me and saw what I was doing.  You see she had witnessed this event on many occasions.  She broke down and said just buy it.  Now if any of you are in a similar situation here are the following steps you must take to ensure the purchase of the item.

1. Say nothing (ie. don’t ask “Are you sure?”)
2. Cautiously move to retrieve your credit card.
   1. Better yet have it memorized
   2. Don’t do this in a hasty manner, act calm and collected.
3. Complete the purchase as quickly as possible.
4. Don’t even talk about the purchase for at least a day or two unless they bring it up.
   1. If they do bring it up, be very careful to read the situation and respond accordingly.

The coolest thing though was before I hit the submit button Erin said “Now hold on… Do you plan on buying a new Macbook Pro in the next year?”

Totally awesome that buying a new real laptop was even something to consider.

So I do now have a Dell Mini 9 sort of on the way.  Unlike purchasing a computer from Apple where you receive the machine the next week, Dell likes to have you wait about a month before they ship it to you.  So hopefully I’ll get mine around the 23rd of April.

Thanks Josh for the support for being there for me through this “tough time”  😉

Rain + March = ICE

I’m not sure what time the rain began falling last night, but by 6:30 AM there was a glistening new layer of ice on the ground.  Our driveway was nearly impossible to get out of and the following downhill seemed more like a luge run than a gravel road.  Needless to say I only managed to avoid going into the ditch at the bottom because of my heroic Bond-like driving skills.  I promptly parked the car and hopped in with Erin since she has the sweet escape which seems to handle the slippery roads a bit better than the bald rear tires on my KIA.  The next 3 miles took us about 20 minutes to navigate doing our best not to end up in the ditch.  When we finally made it to the highway the roads were fine.  The rest of the day was less hectic as Mondays should be.  The rain is supposed to continue for the first half of the week and then turn to snow sometime Wednesday.  Looking forward to the weekend.

P.S.  Who’s orchestrating the collection for “Bill’s Mini Laptop Fund?”

Spring

As the snow fell outside my classroom window last Friday one of my students said “Isn’t today the first day of spring?”.  I confirmed his statement as we all watched the once clean streets begin to fill with snow.  One of my students has a class at the MIB school before my class, upon her arrival she commented on how slippery the roads were.  We had a little discussion about how the drive home would be joyous.

School has been going pretty well.  The kids are fun to work with.  They always have a great attitudes as we work on our projects.  In my broadcasting class we are about to take a week to work on shooting cooking shows.  Using multiple camera angles and an upbeat host I’m hoping they’ll get to try out a different type of shooting and editing.  Im not sure what we’ll make, but I’m hoping its not too elaborate.  The goal is the tech side of things, not the food side of things.  I’m thinking cookies may be on the docket.

My web design class continues to install php msql systems, and hack the themes to look a certain way.  We are in desperate need of Photoshop, but our lab doesn’t have that, so we skimp by.  I’ll be starting them on a new system tomorrow called glfusion.  I’ve never worked with it, but it seems to have a lot of nice feature sets, so I’m hoping it will be something they may actually use on a real project for a client.

Erin and I have been hanging out.  I picked up a couple of steaks from F&D Meats in Virginia last week.  We had a nice sunny day and fired up the grill after work.  The steaks were the biggest I’d ever seen, and shockingly enough we pretty much finished them off with a little wine.  We hope to be doing more barbecuing in the future once this random spring weather decided to clear itself up.  They are forecasting for freezing rain and snow all week, so that’s nice.  😉

We have officially begun the countdown to Australia 74 days and counting.  We can’t wait to fly half way around the world and begin our lazy 3 week road trip along the great ocean road. More posts on that when we get there and maybe a few more leading up to it.

Lately I’ve been obsessed with believe it or not, the thought of buying a new laptop.  What may surprise you however is that “gasp” its not an apple.  I know, I know…. There really is nothing wrong with me.  Here is my thought process…. I am super happy with the macbook pro I currently use, but I don’t know if I really want to take this with me to Australia.  We are going to try to go as light as possible on that trip, with our full intention being to go carry-on.  So the extra weight and size of my slim macbook pro has me thinking smaller…. Much smaller…..  The computer that has caught my eye is the Dell Mini 9.  Its a tiny 9″ laptop and here is what I like about it.

• Small form factor
• Built in 3G (Can connect to Internet via cell tower)
• SSD (Solid State Hard Drive)
• Built in web cam (for skype video)
• WiFi
• Comes with Ubuntu (Yeah no XP or VISTA)
• CAN BE HACKED TO RUN OS X (Apple’s operating system)

The last one is the biggie for me.  To be able to have such a tiny laptop running my favorite OS with iphoto and everything would be phenomenal.  There are some drawbacks, the biggest being the condensed keyboard and the apostrophe key being moved down by the space bar.  So this can cause some troubles when trying to type out something really quickly.  So how much does this hot little number cost?  It starts out at $250.  After you finish configuring it it comes out to about $555 which if you think about it is not too bad.  So im asking all my readers to donate $30 to “Bill’s little laptop fund”  I figure if I can get 20 people on board then I’ll be good to go.  Something to think about with my B-Day coming up next month wink wink.

A weekend in Duluth

Erin and I had been pretty busy the last few weeks.  Erin traveling all over the place, and I was shooting video for bwcacast.   We decided to take the weekend to get away and hang out together.

We headed to Duluth and stayed down by the lake in the Holiday Inn.  Its not right on the water, but its very close to canal park.  We relaxed in the hotel, went out to eat, and caught a couple showings at the Imax theater.  The first one was on the Alps follwing a man who was preparing to climb the north face of the iger.  His father had died attempting to climb the same rout.  It was some really amazing video and with such a large screen it made you feel like you were right there.  One thing that had me wondering is who was packing the Imax camera up the side of that mountain.  The second one was about the great lakes and how the sturgeon fish is on the brink of extinction.  That there is a scientist that is working to save the species.  It seems like they are close to having things under control.  Another fun show to watch.

We didn’t stop our big screen viewing there, we ended the evening by going to SlumDog Millionair.  It was a pretty good movie.  It sure makes you apreciate your childhood.

The weekend went fast as it always does, but I came back feeling a bit refreshed and relaxed.  Just what the doctor ordered.

Winter Show

Last Sunday, Jesse and I headed out to shoot another winter episode for BWCACAST.  Our journey this time led us to the Little Indian Sioux entry point.  It was really warm out and very sunny.  Jesse was armed with his fancy DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera, and I had my video camera.

One of the nice things about shooting shows with Jesse is that he is very patient, and willing to wait around while I set up shots.  There were a few times where I walked a long ways ahead to set up the camera, then hiked back and the two of us would walk continue on our way with the video camera shooting us.

On the way we came across something I had never seen before.  Jesse knew exactly what it was right away.  A bird had taken a small animal out of the snow and in the process left a wing print in the snow.

We made it out to the Devils Cascade, which was about 5 miles from the entry point.  I think I added about another mile to the trip with all the running around with the camera.

The return trip was pretty rough on me.  I am pretty much out of shape, and I think my body is only rated for about 6 or 7 miles of snowshoeing, not 11 or 12.  So there was a lot of grimacing and breaks on the way back.  I was still hobbling around at work on Monday and Tuesday.

I am hoping to head out again this weekend to shoot another show.  Hopefully Jesse will be able to join me as well.

How do you install that?

My web design students are a lot of fun.  We have an ongoing humorous argument about wich operating system is better, Mac or PC.  Well… On Monday one of my students brought me the newest Windows operating system (Windows 7) which was released in beta a couple weeks ago.

So Monday night Jesse and I met up in Hibbing where he helped me pick up some linoleum for our kitchen and we used his truck to bring it back to the house.  Jesse was then kind enough to help me do the install.  Which turned out perfect.

Tuesday back in class, three of my students came up to me asking if I had installed Windows 7 on my Mac the night before.  I told them I hadn’t, because I was too busy installing linoleum.  All three got a very confused look, and then almost at the same time one said “How do you install that?”, while another said “Is that an operating system?”.  I said no, its my new kitchen floor.

It was pretty funny how the terminology was the same, and they were mulling over in their mind how one might install linoleum on their computer.

10,000

This evening around 9:01 PM BWCACAST had its 10,000 video downloaded.  I am very excited about this milestone being reached.  We’ve relased 22 episodes so far and are really looking forward to the shows to come.  We are currently in the process of getting DVD’s made of the first season dubbed “The First Portage”.  We should have them up on the site for sale in the next couple months.  Thanks to everyone that have faithfully followed us from the beginning.