Never Again: Moose meat mayhem

Our base camp was located 600 feet vertically and a quarter mile horizontally to the east of a barren, spall-rock-covered ridge. We used a portion of this ridge as our primary airstrip. Its touchdown elevation was at about 1,200 feet msl with a rollout uphill to a point about 25 feet higher and 600 feet distant, where the ridge rises more steeply. At the upper end we had piled up larger rocks into tiedown cairns for use overnight, perpendicular to the ridge and facing the prevailing crosswinds. We were using several other nearby locations as “spike” camps for our hunters and their assigned guides. These were all within about a five-mile radius of the base camp at various elevations below 2,200 feet msl. Each had a short landing and takeoff track marked with various materials scrounged from the terrain (skulls, shed antlers, rocks, et cetera). The length of the track was suitable for a fully loaded Piper Super Cub or a lightly loaded Maule.

One of my chores was to extract a bull moose carcass from a spike camp we called Banana because of the shape of the usable landing area in the tundra next to the camp. The track was one way, landing more or less to the north on one side of a ridge and rolling out uphill to the left to stop abeam the camp. Takeoffs were from that position, ahead while turning left then finally off the other side of the ridge. Since the typical flights to the spike camps were very short and I wanted maximum cargo capacity, I typically carried seven gallons for the 1968 Piper Super Cub’s 160-horsepower Lycoming. This aircraft had been refurbished to include all sorts of modifications, including vortex generators, bush wheels, and the rear stick removed with the stub covered by a sheet-metal box. This last item turned out to be of critical interest.

I took off downhill from the base camp, turning into the wind and taking advantage of the ridge lift. I was soon climbing up the drainage, with full flaps out while descending relative to the ground level and paralleling the terrain on a line to the touchdown point marked with a caribou skull. I landed on the rising terrain, retracted the flaps, and maintained sufficient power to climb the hill to the camp. There, I loaded the moose meat into the Cub. Typical moose hinds are about 150 pounds and fronts about 100 pounds; with this being a “light” Cub, it was feasible to pack in a couple fronts and a hind in one load. The hard part was wrestling the chunks into position with the foot ends pointing aft and the mass of meat forward, to keep most of the weight as far forward as possible. I stuck a hind quarter in first, and then topped it off with a couple front quarters. Adding my 170 pounds and the five gallons of fuel I had left would leave me in good shape from a weight and balance point of view.

Prior to climbing in, I took a few minutes to walk the length of the takeoff track, looking it over for holes, obstructions, rocks, and such; reviewing the landmarks and lines I needed to pay attention to during takeoff; and sniffing the wind for its variability and speed. It would be six or seven knots with an easterly, right crosswind component as I came off the ridge. I crawled into the pilot’s seat, strapped in, shut the doors, and started up. For an off-airport takeoff, you apply full power then fly the tail using forward stick to balance on the main wheels and once the airplane is rolling sufficiently, pull on full flaps to get airborne as soon as practical. But in between the beginning of the takeoff roll and the getting airborne part you get bounced and beat around quite a bit.

This particular takeoff was no exception and just after I broke ground, in a fairly flat attitude with the terrain falling away below me, I noticed the stick had become nearly immovable. I couldn’t get much deflection on either axis, roll or pitch; maybe an inch in any direction. At least there wasn’t anything immediately in front of me to worry about yet. After experimenting for a few seconds I looked in the back seat. The entire pile of meat had shifted forward and the lowest layer had pushed the cover box off of the rear control stick stub, then settled itself down over the stub to form a nice tight grip on it. So, now while flying along at about 75 miles an hour with the machine trimmed for only its present power and flap configuration, I had to attempt to shift a large mass of meat and bone enough to get sufficient aileron and elevator authority to control my flight path and land at the base camp. This is not easy to do, since Cubs are hands-on fliers. After several fatiguing minutes with one hand on the stick and the other behind the seat lifting and shoving at the pile of meat, I had managed to shift it sufficiently to obtain enough stick travel to make it work—hopefully. I didn’t have the luxury of a great deal of reserve fuel, so I couldn’t spend time on the problem for very long. By this time I was able to fly a series of wide turns, putting me into alignment with the base camp landing strip, and I was already at the necessary altitude for its touchdown point.

The landing wasn’t anything special since the wind was still easterly at six to seven knots. Had it gotten gusty, increased in velocity, or been variable, I would have been in trouble.

While unloading the meat pile I determined what had happened besides the load shifting: The stick cover box had been held in place with sheet-metal screws and Tinnerman nuts, which—through a long series of rough takeoffs and landings—had shaken themselves out and allowed the cover to be pushed out of position. This prompted me to think about such little details as missing screws during preflight inspections, and further, about some better means of securing gelatinous or moveable loads in the cargo spaces. Off-airport operations are inherently risky, but the risk can be mitigated by attention to details both small and large.AOPA

Mark Owen is a commercial pilot and flight instructor with more than 5,000 hours.