Nanuq - How about a Beaver
BobJudy
Member Posts: 6,634 ✭✭✭✭
I didn't want to hijack the other thread but you must have run into a few Beavers in your day up in the great white north;
That's de Haviland DHC-2 Beavers before one of you guys hijack this thread with an off color comment. This is a pic of the two that I took a lot of trips in from 1980 to about 2010 during my Nothern Ontario fishing phase. I found the pic on the net when the subject of seaplanes came up in the other thread. True workhorses and even though they are 65 years or so young, they are still doing the job. Quite a few are still in Canada and a lot are in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Need a 14 foot Lund aluminum boat at a remote lake, just strap it on the frame above one of the pontoons and off you go.
I haven't been back up there in 10 or so years so I did a google search to see how things were going. Found out C_GPUS, the plane in the foreground, had a little crash in 2018. They caught the top of a tree after lifting off a lake and flipped the plane on shore. Two people onboard but no injuries, thank God. I guess they helicoptered out the plane in pieces and repaired and reassembled it and got it back in the air for 2021. Probably good for another 60 years.
I was just curious if you have had the pleasure of sitting behind that big radial engine and hearing it rumble. Bob
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Back about 1998 I 'won' a fishing trip to Canada from one of our suppliers. there was about 30 of use so they chartered 3 planes to fly us in. I was the new one so I said I'd wait for the last plane, the 1st 2 were French turbo props and the last was a beaver. WW2 vintage with wood bench seats along both sides. the pilot gets in and pulls a Garmin out of his shirt pocket, punches in the coordinates and Velcro's it to the firewall . After we get to the lodge I was asked how I liked the beaver; I told them I would rather fly in that than the fancy French plane that could fail to function with one burned out transistor. you could fix the beaver with a crescent wrench and a ball peen hammer.
Don't forget the duct tape!😀 Bob
Quote; Don't forget the duct tape!😀 Bob
Remember before there was duct tape, there was chewing gum! 😁
No, no. Back then, it was "binder wahr."
You dang kids, cut that out!
Oh and before I forget - Get off my lawn!
Sorry that's just my inner curmudgeon coming out. Carry on. Bob
Well that's me late to the party again!
You bet, the Beaver is my all time favorite airplane. I LOVE the sound of a big radial engine. Luckily Lake Hood here in town is the busiest seaplane base in the world, and it's stuffed with Beavers on floats because so many folks have cabins on lakes that are off the road system. I get to hear the things all the time. What a treat.
We did a tour around Mt McKinley and had our choice of a Beaver or a Turbine Otter. Sadly I got outvoted and we had to (grinning like a schoolboy) go up in the Otter. Another spectacular plane with zero takeoff roll. We got into a box canyon and the only visibility was straight up so we pointed the nose up and effortlessly climbed straight up that little hole of blue sky.
Here's Ruth glacier on a bluebird day (not me)
Here's how it looks most of the time. Our ceiling dropped so we couldn't stop on the glacier.
Heading for the Roosters Comb, that little opening doesn't look very big, does it
Just make sure you go OVER the ridge...
I figured that there was pretty darn good chance you were intimately familiar with them. What is amazing is how many of these old workhorses are still flying and in demand by outfitters, freight haulers, tour operators and others. Here is a video I found about one that was sold to the army, decommissioned and went to Alaska, sold again and went Nebraska, then Alaska again and then Seattle before it was exported to the U.K. Unbelievably short take off;
The gentleman that owns the two in my first post boasted "If you can fit it in the doors or can strap on the pontoon struts" he could take off and deliver it. If it was reincarnated as a wheeled vehicle, it would be a 1950 Dodge Powerwagon. Goes anywhere and can carry a lot of stuff while doing it. Bob
I got to fly in one of those back in '79 or '80. Just a hop from Ketchican to Craig on Prince of Wales Island.
I arrived at the dock at the appointed time and the pilot told me we had to wait for the mail and a couple of other passengers. The mail got there in two big bags and I helped him get 'em stuffed into the luggage/cargo area behind the back seats. About a half an hour later our other two passengers came wandering down the dock. HOLY CRAP! These guys were two of the biggest native fellas I've ever seen. Each one of 'em must've weighed 400 pounds. They got in the back seat and I sat in the right front. The pilot gave her the gas and away we went, and went, and went. We must have skipped across the water for 40 miles before that plane finally go in the air! We landed at Hollis as our first stop and the two big native boys got out. I swear that plane veritably leapt into the air without that extra 800 pounds of human in it.
One of these days I'd like to take that flight again. WITHOUT the two big guys!
The Turbine Otter is a whole 'nother story. Talk about an abundance of power! Up in Talkeetna we took one out, me, another guy, my daughter, two adults from India, and their two kids. Got lined up, cleared to roll, applied a wee smidgen of power, and less than 300 yards we were in the air. And it's none of that point-the-nose-up-and-climb nonsense, the whole bloody thing stays flat and just LIFTS like a crane has hold of it. Good LORD those things are beasts.
The floats weren't helping you any. We've flown the Maule on tundra tires from the mine in to Anchorage with an entire dressed moose in back.
I flew in to Quetico Park Ontario in a DeHavilland Beaver in 1991. The bush pilots love that airplane.
Yeah how do you think all those cabins on lakes get built? Strap the building materials to the pontoons and go. Or bring along a dinghy in case you bend your Beaver.
"Don't forget the duct tape!............I talked to the pilot when we landed and he said several years ago the engine quit on take-off and he had to 'pancake' it into the spruce trees. after getting back to base and getting parts & equipment he went back and after fixing it and chain sawing a lane back to the lake he flew it back out.
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Aerodynamics? We don't need no stinking aerodynamics!
Or worse..........
All you need is a bit of "engineering" plus horsepower and most anything will fly.
Just taking the little guy under his wing!
To be fair though, I think that's an Otter, the Beavers big bro. Bob
Side car!
Oh yeah Bob, you're definitely right about the Otter.
Wait for it....
Wait for it ...............
I "Otter" know better 😂
Well you gone and done it - I'm speechless and we know that don't happen often!😅 Bob
Yep, why do you think I drive an old Land Rover? Hammer, duct tape, baling wire. Go anywhere, slowly.
59 to be exact. A touch over 400,000 miles and she still doesn't burn oil. Drips? That's another story.
If it's not leaking you are out of oil.
I have been getting in a few hours in a 1949 Cessna. It's a friend of mines. Sure does fly nice for as old as it is.
Good choice! This was my Cessna 140. Great little airplanes.
Once you get used to Tundra Tires, those itty bitty stock tires sure look funny.
I find myself in total awe with all of you fly boys! May be a bit jealous but being my fault for never striving to achieve my wings down life's winding paths.
I will share this quote from a favored movie of mine though;
Never feel sorry for a man who owns a plane. 😁
P.S. I know this quote was made by Alec Baldwin but he did get what's coming to him in that movie!
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
– John Gillespie Magee (1922-41)
"And here, she's acting happy
Inside her handsome home
And me, I'm flying in my taxi
Taking tips and getting stoned
I go flying so high, when I'm stoned"
Harry Chapin 😊
NANUQ, this might be more in line with you are used to seeing. My 140 on skis.
Sold the 140, kept the skis for my 170. Whole helluva lotta fun!
What a spectacular, gorgeous machine! Wow, that's nice.