EXERCISE WHOOPER FINN: FIELD REPORT NO. 12

Entry into Alaska was a relatively painless affair. The Customs and Immigration Officer was one of the friendliest we had met, putting a 'Flying Moose' Northway Immigration stamp into our passports. He confirmed that we had crossed yet another time zone and were now 9 hours behind the UK. Despite arriving about 9 p.m. local time, the sun was still high in the sky, and it did not get dark at all, more a sort of bright dusk, with the sun just below the horizon. Northway is a functional, frontier airport, with a mix of cross border general aviation traffic and small local aircraft serving the roadless hinterland. The world's ugliest aircraft, an ex-military Caribou, was carrying cargoes ranging from bales of hay to diesel fuel for local communities. It really was a flying 'truck' with engine cowlings painted in different fading colours, and black engine oil dripping from the engine bays. Powered by two large radial engines, it grunted off the ground and flew only twice the speed of the ultralight!

The runway was tarmac, an exception out there, as most were gravel, and there was a small flight services outpost which handled passing traffic. Our first excursion to the outpost revealed a large laconic Texan as the duty person, and he gave us the weather briefing. He was so laid back he needed a heart monitor to check for signs of life. The Puerto Rican who replaced him was more upbeat, but he too was infected with the laid back Alaskan approach. It seemed no-one gets too excited about anything, as day and night are not applicable terms during the Summer, and you have all the time in the world to do anything you want.

The bar at the side of the runway was the local watering hole, and the bar owner introduced herself as 'Tiger'. If you wanted anything to eat, you cooked it yourself on the indoor barbecue. If it didn't turn out right you could blame the cook! Gary enjoyed the company in the bar and was last to bed. However, he didn't quite manage to catch the time zone change, and we were amazed to see him up first in the morning preparing the breakfast. He probably wouldn't have minded an early start, but he went to bed at 2 a.m. and was up at 6.30a.m. He thought we had all slept in!

A planned early departure was delayed as the van had a flat tyre. The repair operation necessitated a round trip of 100 km. to and from the nearest tyre repair shop. Alaska is that sort of place. We eventually took off at 1.00 p.m, and climbed to 7,000 feet to get over the turbulence which was building up in the afternoon heat. Approaching the mountains, the turbulence suddenly became quite violent, so we elected to land at the nearest airfield, a deserted aerial fire tanker base at Tanacross, and wait until the heat died down. I walked out to the highway to leave a message for the groundcrew, and was in the process of tying the message and two balloons as a signal to a road sign when they met me. We all went back to wait out the afternoon.

One of the airfield operators came out to see who and what we were, and we had a pleasant chat. The airfield is used only in the fire season, and as there weren't many fires this year it had seen little use. Another local passing by called in to see us, and he turned out to be a real life Forrest Gump. When told we were from Ireland he enquired " Is that someplace North of here?" Geography obviously wasn't his strong point. We had an interesting hour or so explaining the mechanics of the ultralight to him. I'm sure he was off to build one from memory when he left!

As the time approached to leave, with the wind dying down, we could see that across the mountains on our track, it had started to look a little misty, but nothing untoward - or so we thought. As we crossed the first ridge the visibility dramatically reduced. It was impossible to see to the East at all. The smell of burning trees drifted up to us and it was clear that this was the smoke from a large forest fire. The smoke was hemmed in by the mountains to the West, and as the visibility dropped even further I had visions that the whole expedition was about to come to a halt, forced to a stop by the poor visibility. The only option was to descend to about 500 feet and follow the road. Fortunately, conditions did not deteriorate any more, and it remained VFR for another 30 miles or so.

Finally we flew into improving conditions, and as the visibility increased we could see the spectacular snow-covered mountains of the Alaska Range. Every few miles a new vista would open up and an even bigger mountain came into view, previously hidden by the panoramic spectacle we were already looking at. Words fail me when I attempt to describe the scenery on this flight. It was simply awesome, beautiful, majestic, all of these things and much, much more. I hope the photographs capture some of the essence of the scenery, and I look forward to seeing them when I get home.

The airspace here is the preserve of the US military, with the chart covered with MOAs or military operations areas, places where everything up to and including fast jets can exercise to their limits. It's not as if the locals complain a lot, as the only locals are the wildlife, and they don't seem to mind too much. Other more lowly forms of flight are restricted to a narrow corridor that follows the river beside the highway, and is limited to 1,500 feet above ground. It was still worth keeping a very good watch for fast moving aircraft, as the fast jet jockeys don't always remember the boundaries of the low level corridor, and its no use arguing the toss after the collision!

We landed at Delta Junction, the other end of the Alaska Highway, at 10.30 p.m., with the sun still high in the sky and feeling very warm for the time of night. Only the presence of lots of mosquitoes dissuaded us from stripping off. The groundcrew weren't far behind, and after refuelling, we took off for the final leg to Fairbanks International Airport

This was a busy place, with transpolar cargo flights stopping off to refuel and rows of small aeroplanes tied down in the parking area. The heavy traffic had a runway all to themselves, and the parallel light aviation runways were separated from it by a water runway for the floatplanes. It was the first time I had taken off in an ultralight on one day and landed the next. It was half past midnight by the time we arrived. By then the sun was low on the horizon, and it cast long shadows as we parked up and checked in with Flight Services. We were directed to the airport camping area, an excellent facility, with individual bays for tying down aircraft, and soft sandy areas for erecting tents. There were fire pits and wood supplied for the grand sum of $3.00 per night. It was nearly 2.00 a.m. by the time we got to bed. It did not get dark, not even close, and already the sun was starting to rise again. We were still well short of the Arctic Circle, and wondered what the 'Land of the Midnight Sun' would be like.

The following morning we met Don Shannon, the airport handyman, and exchanged a few jokes and stories. Don, like most of the people we met, had moved to Alaska from other parts of the 'Lower Forty-eight'. He was of Irish American background, from Chicago and had lived in Fairbanks for close to 20 years. He loved the life, good summers with endless light, and even in the darkness of the winter he said there was always so much to do that you never noticed the absence of sunlight. We got on so well that he took the afternoon off to show us around Alaskaland, a local history park, where the centrepiece was an old retired steam driven paddleboat. It was fascinating to look around. The most surprising feature was the wooden construction held together with a series of metal rods running right through the structure. Apparently, it was not uncommon to run aground on the numerous shifting sandbars in the silt laden glacial rivers. The metal rods could be tensioned and slackened so the whole boat could flex and literally twist itself off almost any obstacle.

Our return to the airfield brought us down to earth with a bump. Darryl Avierra, the Operations Manager was waiting for us. He told us that they didn't allow ultralights at the airport and that we had to leave. We were not even allowed to take off. We explained our expedition aims and what we wanted to do, as well as the fact that we had flown in during the early morning. He told us that the airport had an unpublished directive banning ultralight operations and that the airport manager, Doyle Ruff, was adamant that we had to leave. We could not believe the logic in not allowing us to fly out, especially since we had been allowed to land, and none of the airport staff were aware of this secret directive. His only solutions were to either take the aircraft apart, or to apply to the local Department of Transport for a permit to taxi the aircraft down the highway to the nearest airfield that would accept us! We argued our case, eventually suggesting that their position would not look good in the local TV, and after a number of calls to the manager, they finally relented. In the end we were told we could fly out early in the morning but we weren't to come back.

This was an unexpected turn of events, certainly in a place that thrives on its frontier spirit and markets adventure in bulk. However, our predicament became news on the local pilot grapevine, and very soon we had offers to accommodate us when we returned. This helped to alleviate the bad taste created by this little event.

In the morning we decamped and taxied to the holding point ready for take off. It was a busy time, with the heavy runway and the three light aviation runways in use, including the water. Some of the takeoffs were from opposite ends just to keep us sharp! As I lifted off I realised I had no airspeed indication, and in almost any other situation I would have set down again and remedied the fault. However, since we were obviously not 'flavour of the month' with the management, I did not wish to create any more issues to assist the persecution of ultralighting. I continued the climb out and cleared the controlled airspace. Fortunately, a weightshift ultralight will fly at trim speed without too much pilot input, and I was not unduly worried about the lack of this instrument.Our destination was a filling station at the edge of the Yukon River, and the plan was to land there on the Dalton highway, refuel, and proceed to Coldfoot in the foothills of the Brooks Range. Overhead the Yukon River it was apparent that the highway was not going to be an option due to a forest of road signs and trees close to the road. It looked like there might be a possibility of landing in the forecourt, and as it was going to be a short landing, this was one place where I really could have done with a working airspeed indicator. The GPS was put to good use and I flew an approach both ways to calculate the wind direction. I elected for a low downwind leg, turned over the fast flowing river, and scraped in over a line of parked cars to touch down as soon as possible. The roll out took us up a curving ramp right to the edge of the highway, where we stopped, turned around, and taxied back to the front of the restaurant to park the aircraft. Nobody noticed (or probably cared) about our arrival. It was as if this sort of thing happened every day. Steve and I took off our helmets and flying gear, packed it around the seat and strolled across for breakfast as if we did this sort of thing all the time. We were practising being just as laid back as the Alaskans.

After a pleasant breakfast the aircraft was pushed over to the pumps and filled up. We checked the function of the airspeed indicator, and it was working again; it seems whatever crawled into the small hole in the pitot tube didn't like the ride from Fairbanks and crawled out again at Yukon River. Taking off again was every bit as challenging as the landing. In the end the wind came round 180 degrees and we took off in the opposite direction, down the ramp from the highway, curving across the forecourt to miss the pumps, and climbed out over the parked cars to cross the river. It was not the place for an engine failure, and I was glad of the power and reliability from the four-stroke Rotax.

We later found out that just after we took off a large black bear came out of the bush on to the spot where we had warmed the engine and started our takeoff run. Apparently it sniffed the air for a moment and then ambled off across the forecourt.