Greetings from Enterprise Oregon - new 'hauler

[Hubb 0]

Hello,

I am contacting e forum to introduce myself to the community and share my experience thus far running my company "Mountain Air".

A few years back I had an opportunity to spend some time in the Payette national forest. I had a friend who was a lookout at Hershey Point, a very remote mountaintop lookout.

I had an opportunity to see the smoke jumper base in McCall Idaho and loved everything about that town.

I have been flying the Carenado 185F Bush and figured that plane in McCall would be the perfect setup for a bush airline.

As I started my career I quickly learned that both the 185F and McCall are a bit too spendy for my budget.

So, "Mountain Air" has set up operations in Enterprise, Oregon operating out of the foulest smelling Cessna 172 this side of the Mississippi. The goat I hauled last week chewed a hole in the back seat, and the 4 sheep I'm hauling from Lacrosse to Clam Harbor right now are doing their best rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody in the back.

A wise man once said "Keep your eye on the prize; focus on the locus". I'm going to get that powerful 185 soon enough. As for McCall, I always schedule a day layover and make sure I buzz Hershey Point as I pass through.

-Chris

CEO and Founder, Chief Pilot, Upholsterer - Mountain Air

[brett 2,316]

Welcome to the forum Chris, pleasure to meet ya and glad to have you aboard.  I am a newly planted PA'er and live over toward the eastern side.

 

Those sheep are some smelly creatures but the fish and shrimp runs aren't any better. Even a stud hand of pine tree air fresheners don't help. Sooner or later you fly them so often you do not even notice the smell anymore, that when you become a true bush pilot.  Good luck with the new company, may the AH dollars come rolling in.   

[Bobby 0]

Hi Chris,

 

Welcome!!!!!!

 

I run up and down the west coast so I will probably run into you out of my Kalamath or Portland ramps. Looking forward to your stories and screenshots.

 

Bobby

[allardjd 1,853]

Welcome aboard.  Always good to see another freight dog on the premises.

 

John

[Corsaire31 419]

Hi from another new Air Hauler pilot ! I am also flying the Cessna 172 at the moment from my companies in British Columbia and French West Indies, but I have a 185F Bush ready for Alaska (a lot of jobs require floats) and a standard Skywagon for the West Indies.

Just have to earn the money...

[Hubb 0]

Hey folks.

So another week of hauling random stuff around the Idaho/Oregon/Washington area and I'm getting closer to scraping the cash together for the 185.

I have learned a few lessons along the way.

1: check to make sure your destination doesn't have water runways (unless you have floats)

2: I learned what VFe is. Thankfully the flaps were stuck in the first position and I was able to land without too much drama. That little error wiped out my profit on the job.

I have found a few interesting places along the way. The eastern approach into Chenoweth Airpark is pretty cool. The approach gets you pretty close to the mountainside.

I stopped for gas a few days back at an airport in Oregon (I think) in a mountain river valley with 2 rows of hangars right off of the airport. I drove around looking for the gas pump but never found it. I just let the valet fill it up. Cool little place, I figured it was some sort-of fancy resort area.

I don't have a great system but I'm going to try to post some screen shots of things I find along the way.

Quick question, where does the term greaser come from? (I guess I could google it) but my guess is that it has something to do with the black spots on the tarmac.

Happy Haulin

-Chris

[allardjd 1,853]

Greaser is a reference to a touchdown so gentle it's as if the runway has been greased. In the RW, a greaser is characterized by hearing the wheels rolling before you feel anything. Anyone can do one once in a while; two in a row is luck; three in a row and either someone's lying or you have the FS reality sliders set too low.

John

[Hubb 0]

Uh oh. I only get greasers.

I have honestly never looked at the reality sliders. Newbie mistake I presume.

I will look into adjusting those (and add insurance to my plane). Will this also give me winds other than calm, potentially some crosswinds at landing?

[Captain Coffee 2,030]

Welcome to the VFe club. My mechanic is bummed that I found an Easy place to find any plane's vfe...that aircraft.cfg file. Also stall speeds with and without flaps are in there.

Cheers and hope you get your upgrade soon.

BTW...I love landing. Sliders are all set to max and I get 90% greasers with my favorite planes...p38, cargomaster, and bd5j. Its all about getting a good approach then a well timed flare...also...flying all the way to the runway is better than plopping down at the last minute from a near stall imo.

Happy hauling!

[Hubb 0]

After turning up the difficulty sliders I've observed the following:

 

1) The 172 pulls HEAVILY to the left when i take off. . . . taking off (espically when loaded-down) is kind of like driving in snow.  Just keep it pointed in the right direction and watch the speed.

2) Landings have been good still with 1 exception . . . about 50/50 greaser - to - okay ratio

 

The Exception: I crashed . . . . I was coming in low on final into 8S4 Runway 30, so i removed a notch of flaps, gave it full throttle to abort (i was probably 150 feet off the ground, maybe less) and the plane started to tilt (yaw?) to the left pretty hard. . . I had to go back to flying like at takeoff. . . i thoguht i had it stabilized,but as i tried to climb it stalled out..  Couldn't save it.

 

$35,000 in damage (covered by insurance) and a -2 in reputation. . . . it was a bad night for Mountain Air.

 

Did I have a mechanical failure or did the plane behave normally given the corrective steps I took?  I have zero training so I won't be too embarassed if I totally messed it up.

 

-Chris

[allardjd 1,853]

Don't pull up the flaps until you've applied full throttle and gained enough airspeed to climb safely without them.  Don't try to establish a climb until you've reached a normal climb speed.  Arrest the descent but fly level over the runway until you've gained enough speed to raise the flaps and climb.  Depending on the AC, it will probably try to climb with the additional power, but initially, gaining some airspeed is more important than climbing.  You may actually have to push the yoke a little until you've got the flaps up and re-trimmed. You're over a runway and are already higher than you would be if you were taking off from it.  Altitude is not as high a priority as a safe airspeed.

 

The earlier a go-around is initiated, the easier/safer it is.

 

The yaw on takeoff is a combination of torque and p-Factor.  (If you want a thrill, try it with a high-powered, piston-engined WWII taildragger, e.g. Spitfire, Me-109, Thunderbolt, Hellcat.) The yaw when adding power for a go around is torque.

 

John

[Hubb 0]

Hey folks,

 

Things have been going well at Mountain Air.

 

I was finally able to save up enough cash to score that Cessna 185.  I'm still getting the hang of landing and taxi'ing with a taildragger, but all-in-all things are going quite well.

 

I've encountered some pretty interesting places in my travels, I wanted to share a few screengrabs with you here.

 

Apoliges for the lack of detial. . . i'm playing on a 2007 imac running bootcamp. . . . not enough power.

 

 

I'm around 52% reputation, so i'm getting geared up to hire an additional pilot.  I'm thinking about grabbing a 206 Stationair to add to the fleet.

 

-Chris

[brett 2,316]

Nice pic's, the C185 tundra is one of my favorite sightseer's.  I fly a lot of taildraggers so am pretty used to them. Happy to hear Mountain Air is doing well.

[Quickmarch 488]

I'm ringing the bell a bit late, here. Don't know how I missed this thread before today.

 

Anyway, welcome to the PNW. See you around the beanpatch.

 

March

Chief Cook & Bottle Washer

QuikAire - CYCD