Bearhawk in the backcountry

[Battson]

Doing a bit of flying in the teeth of the Norwesterly front.....

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[JimParker256]

Cool pictures! (Pun intended!)

[Battson]

The plane (and ourselves) have been out enduring more tough conditions. Mid-winter hunting is on, once again.

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[Battson]

Here's a couple of photos from a recent hunting trip - it's the rut season down here in the southern hemisphere (just finished), so hunting is big on the backcountry agenda right now.

We had a lot of wind through this pass, at right angles to the small airstrip. About 22 knots crosswind component. Parked with a tailwind, means flaps down in the Bearhawk.
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We just camp next to the plane. It's pretty cold at night!
From this place, we can hunt Red Deer, Chamois, and Himalayan tahr.
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[lsa140]

Beautiful.

[Battson]

I've been deperately slack with the camera lately.... we are still doing a lot of flying!

Here's a few more shots from a recent diving trip:

En-route south to the Marlborough Sounds


Arrived at the airstrip, one way into the cliffs. Plenty of room.


Our generous host Cliff, with my father-in-law and my lovely wife! Thanks Cliff for the use of your boat, and the family to crew it! What a great place and a truly great group of people.


Here's the bay / port which we were diving in. A keen eye will see the airstrip in the bottom left corner of the photo:


Father in law with a feed of fish and crayfish (attacking his leg also). Our host's early model C172's in the background, plus a can be seen lurking A185F in the hanger. The backcountry connoisseur will notice the WingX installed.


Flying home with a plane full of wet dive gear, empty tanks, and the bounty of the sea ("Kai Moana"). I have to cruise-climb quite slowly to climb along side the C172 XP... 19" and 2300 in the climb... haha.

[Battson]

Still time to get to the forum! Nice.
We've got a family history with that yellow 185 (ZK-FMA), you'll usually find it at Makarora, call Southern Alps Air.

[Peter Bishton]

Jono you have been fishing and practicing landing in less than the length of a footy field.!! On a gravel bar. You are clever. We have been cruising your wonderful country South Island in a toyota aurion. This morning my 14 yr old daughter bungy jumped above the Kawarau river near Queenstown. I am trying to book a scenic flight for Wanaka in the yellow C 185 that is there. Regards Peter

[Phil]

Awesome! I started fly fishing again last year, and getting to the really hot fishing spots around Alaska is one of the things motivating me to make progress on my Patrol.

[Battson]

Excellent.
Day one we got 6 rainbow trout in about an hour.
Day two we got 2 in a morning.
Day three we got 10 in an hour and a half, then decided to leave them alone!
All catch and release, fly fishing. Most fish were between 4 and 7 pounds.

[Phil]

But more importantly, how was the fishing?

[patrickh99]

Love the videos! Especially the 360 one. Keep the videos and pictures coming as motivation for those of us still pecking away at our builds.

Patrick

[Battson]

The adventures continue, summer holidays in New Zealand.

This was an especially tricky spot, by my personal standards. This was a 300ft one-way landing on a rocky bar, you can see basically the whole thing in the picture, including the dead-end in the trees. The aircraft is sitting where we stopped, under quite a lot of braking, just to give you an idea how tight that is. To be honest, I missed my mark and landed about 40 feet deeper than I needed to. Also, the rocks on the touchdown end of the bar were quite large and unevenly patterned, and I was not thrilled about using them.
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I've been pushing my limits recently, and grown a little more comfortable doing it, sometimes. Unfortunately, this means throwing more rocks into the tail feathers when I get the touchdown wrong. This was one of those days, we punctured the fabric in two places with one rock. Field repair...

This is another tight spot which required absolutely full braking - but we had room to spare in the end. Again you can see almost the whole landing run in picture.
This one was quite smooth, fortunately. It's hard to assess all the spots perfectly from the air, some spots you can see the grade of the rocks isn't that large, but upon landing you learn they are patterned in such a way that some stick out and others lay low, making for a rough landing.
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This spot was also really tight (see a pattern developing) and I needed to use the water to get out again(!!) to avoid dragging the tail in really rough rocky terrain on take-off (a one-way of sorts). I was loaded with three people and full tanks this time, a heavy load for a 290ft river bar.
Using the water was huge moment for me, personally. I have never had to use water before, and I've never practised it - because it seems risky to practice that without an instructor. I have read enough about hydroplaning to know what would happen. I do believe that there is a place to be able to use water in STOL ops, but I wanted to take my time.
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​I was surprised how much give the water had, I could feel the wheels go a fraction deeper as I checked the stick forward (to check I really was on the water), then push me back into the air like a coiled spring. I probably only used two plane lengths of water, but still... a first.... baby steps don't bite hard.

Have fun out there, and happy New Year.

[Battson]

And yes - some of you might have noticed I've previously been an outspoken proponent of not doing that flap retraction thing on landing.
I still reckon that the lift reduction benefits are negligible, I don't think it's worth dumping the flaps to stop the plane flying to get weight onto the main wheels.
The only reason I like to do it in the Bear, is because it makes the tail much heavier, and enables more braking that way. This is about prop wash, and works at most any airspeed. Its not about putting more weight on the mains.

[Battson]

Great weather for flying this weekend, stopped at the riverbed, the beach, and did an hour of STOL circuits.



I have found I've become proficient enough to retract the flaps on landing for STOL stuff. The main advantage isn't reduced lift, in the Bearhawk the big advantage is the tail gets a lot heavier with the flaps up, so you can brake a lot harder and stop shorter.