Letters: From our August 2016 issue

I just finished reading and enjoyed Dave Hirschman’s article “Alaska Misadventure” and it brought back memories—some scary, but mostly good. I have lived in Alaska for 53-plus years and learned to fly here. I have flown here as a private pilot most of those years.

We own a remote cabin in “interior” Alaska; it is located about 90 air miles west-northwest of the Gulkana, Alaska, airport. As a result of living in Juneau and having this cabin up north, we have flown most of Dave’s story route many times. On those trips I mostly flew a Cessna 182 tailwheel airplane but also flew a Cessna 150/152 tailwheel airplane on several of the trips. Fuel management is critical when flying in the more remote parts of Alaska (and the Yukon), as Dave did on this trip.

Watching weather develop along your route is a critical part of your decision-making process. You question yourself do I land in Yakutat and fuel up and risk having the weather set in ahead of me or do I have enough fuel to push on? I assume those thoughts were going through Dave’s mind when he decided not to land and top off at Yakutat. I am glad he enjoyed (and survived) his flight along the “outer” coast of Alaska—it is a very beautiful and memorable experience.

George Davidson
AOPA 459573
Juneau, Alaska

Good work, Dave. You brought us along with you, and that’s the best one could ask from any author. Thanks for sharing.   Howard Hollinger, AOPA 5096491, Austin, TexasI am a little surprised Dave Hirschman took that route single-engine. Although I never flew my RV to Alaska, I planned a flight and the Cordova-to-Gustavus segment is just too unforgiving. Even if you don’t have a fuel problem, you are betting your life on the engine. Am I correct in thinking there is no survivable terrain for an emergency landing, and the water is too cold to live long enough to be rescued? I understand this trip was in a factory-built airplane, but Experimental amateur-built aircraft pilots have the added problem that after the ditching and the insurance check, it takes years to build a new airplane.

Tom Muller
AOPA 4034312
Poland Spring, Maine

Tom Haines’ interesting article on this small jet in AOPA’s August issue mentions the radical over-the-wing-engine-mounts, OTWEM in Honda parlance. It might be interesting to know that VFW Fokker developed the 614 with similar OTWEMs in the mid-1970s. It’s great to see Honda pursuing this innovative German design in their new HondaJet. As always, the magazine is a great read!

Erik Moen
AOPA 1354689
Amstelveen, Netherlands

Budget buy

I feel I must take exception to a statement made by Mr. Marsh in his piece “Budget Buy: It’s Complex” regarding the Piper Arrow. In the category “biggest minus,” Mr. Marsh says, “Four people on a hot day? Fuhgeddaboutit.” My 1969 Piper Arrow PA–28R-200 will pack two 185-pound husbands, two 130-pound wives, four 25-pound suitcases, and full fuel (50 gallons), climb at 500 fpm on a 90-degree F August day in Wisconsin to supplemental oxygen levels, and fly for 4.5 hours (585 nm) with VFR reserves. I know that for certain—I did it last weekend.

Try that in either a Cessna 172RG or a Beechcraft Sierra (as Mr. Marsh suggested), and you’ll have to leave one passenger home. Try that in a Mooney, and you’ll have to leave two passengers home. Perhaps in the category “biggest minus” it should have said, “none, really.”

Neil A. Czarnecki
AOPA 4183296
Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin

Erratum

In the August issue of Turbine Pilot, “Long Live the King” identifies the winglet manufacturer as Boundry Layer Research; the company has changed its name to BLR Aerospace LLC.

We welcome your comments. Editor, AOPA Pilot, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland 21701 or email ([email protected]). Letters may be edited for length and style before publication.

Hangar Talk

Traveling to Africa is on most people’s bucket lists—to see the animals, the scenery, take a safari. For Senior Features Editor Julie Summers Walker and Photographer Chris Rose, theirs was a different type of African trip (“Hope has wings” on page 77). Accompanying the pilots of AirServ, a humanitarian aviation organization that flies Cessna Caravans into the not-so-modern world of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the two journalists saw a different side of Africa. From the underdeveloped roads to the grass airstrips, the threat of rebels in the mountainous landscape to the sick and poverty-stricken patients in the hospitals, this was no African safari. “I admit to being a little frightened when a truckload of heavily armed Congolese soldiers pulled up beside us, but the people of Africa were for the most part simply wonderful. That they still live in a world where roads are not paved and bathrooms are holes in the ground and homes are huts with grass roofs can be overwhelming,” says Walker. “However, the joy that life can bring still shown from the faces of the children—as evidenced in this photo of Chris in Bunia, DRC—and the flying was as majestic as pilot Beryl Markham wrote of years ago in my favorite flying book West with the Night. But since we didn’t see the animals on a safari, Chris and I did go to the Entebbe zoo.”