Leg 12
Dec 15th, 2019
PAGK Gulkana Airport - PALJ Port Alsworth
Previous report | Teaser
So there I was, at Gulkana Airport, with a broken propeller and a probably broken engine. And the time was ticking away. 1460 nm in a straight line to Attu, and I wasn’t going to be flying a straight line. I needed something significantly faster than 100 knots, but I didn’t have the money on hand to buy a turbine-driven plane.
Of course I had been keeping up with the reports of other Mudspikers, one in particular who had somehow managed to pick up an old but shiny warbird in Alaska, ‘in a sale’, whatever that may mean … Garage sale?
So I started asking around the airport if anybody had an old (by which I meant cheap) but reasonably fast airplane that they were trying to get rid of and was eventually sent to a hangar in the corner of the airport. There I found Gérard, a grumpy old man from Quebec who treasured such a pride in his language as I had only seen in Belgians. He happened to have owned a reasonable amount of aircraft, and had moved to Alaska to enjoy the mountains and be able to fly more freely, away from controlled airspace and boring flat lands.
He offered me an unusual aircraft for this region: an old French Dewoitine D.520, a fighter aircraft from World War II, roughly comparable to the early Spitfires and Bf.109s, but with an automatic prop pitch setting governor. His passion for everything French, which I shared, was the reason for its presence on this side of the Atlantic.
He was trying to sell it to a Russian buyer, but had trouble finding pilots who were crazy enough to fly such an old aircraft to Russia this time of year.
Needless to say, my offer to take it to Attu was greatly appreciated.
Take-off around 11:30 local time (actually this was my second take-off, after X-Plane crashed)
When I saw this river, I went to take a look up close. This is lots of fun at ~550 km/h, much faster than the Cessna!
Weather got worse - you don’t want to get stuck in a cloud bank without an ADI, so I dove under the clouds.
Halfway between Gulkana and Anchorage, I decided to stop for lunch along Glenn Highway
After lunch, the weather had cleared, so I took off and after playing around some mountain peaks, climbed to a comfortable cruise altitude of 9,000 m (30,000 feet).
You can see I am over the Anchorage region in the above picture by the amount of airports in this view. I can count about four (sorry for the resolution, I only took my shitty backup mobile phone with me on this trip and couldn’t really keep it steady under this angle)
And then the clouds appeared again, and although I optimistically remained at altitude, it eventually dawned on me that it would not be wise to stay above a layer of overcast in a plane this ill-equipped when flying into a mountainous region. I had not really planned for a destination airport, expecting to land around Anchorage, but wanted to push on a little bit further now. I should have at least 2 hours of fuel remaining.
So I dove down, built up some speed and tried to keep a steady hand as I blasted through the overcast.
I looked at the map and decided to try and follow the Tlikakila River valley towards Lake Clark. There I would be able to find a place to land, and if not, I could always continue to Iliamna.
The overcast remained sufficiently above the valley floor, and although the visibility deteriorated just before Lake Clark, I was confident in the turning ability of this dealy French dancer that I pushed onward. On the south side of Lake Clark, I found this cozy-looking airport called Port Alsworth and that is where I am now.
Just a few more legs to go, and although the Dewoitine is a much faster machine than the C172, I will still have to up my tempo a bit to make it to Attu before Christmas!
