Can you identify this location?

Anyone here made use of the B&B at the Brothers lighthouse?



Looking north.* Access is at the east end of the island (right side of the photo).* Watch out!* They're kayakers out there.

*


-- Edited by markpierce on Monday 10th of October 2011 10:05:15 PM

Should be easy for most Pacific Sailors.

You tell me.* I'm not positive where*this is but it is in Alaska.

I wonder if the trawler skipper saw the floatplane coming.


-- Edited by markpierce on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 06:01:24 PM

You hear HEAR them but only after the're right along side or on top of you. Can be a very loud roar. I had one fly 20' over me in Juneau from behind. Water from his floats fell on my windshield. From that angle I could'nt ID the plane. Was a Cessna type. And that has'nt happened since.

PS *Looks like Divers boat and Taquan Air in front of Pennock Is.

*







-- Edited by nomadwilly on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 06:52:14 PM

People get all excited about photos like this (floatplane and boat) and feel they look like a dangerous situation. They aren't. Given the speed difference between the plane and the boat, the pilot can treat the boats as almost stationary objects. I've landed countless times in the busy channel in front of Ketchikan (and on busy Lake Union here in Seattle). Things look very different from the air than they do from the shore or on the water where the lateral distances between objects are much harder to judge. What looks like a crowded Lake Union on a Duck Dodge evening actually has huge pieces of open water in it when viewed from the air.

The only problems I have ever encountered with boats when flying a floatplane has been due to stupid boaters. On a few occasions on Lake Washington, we have had speedboaters--- always kids--- parallel us when we started our takeoff run and then dash across in front of us in a "beat the propeller" maneuver. Sort of like trying to beat the train at the railroad crossing.

The toughest to deal with are windsurfers who are crossing your takeoff path way out in front of you where they pose no problem at all if they keep going. But occasionally they will be crossing in front of you and then suddenly try to reverse course and fall over. The only saving grace here is that once they're down they're not going anywhere so they're easy to miss.

Sailboats under sail are easy because I know they can't stop on a dime or suddenly back up. They can tack or jibe but most of the floatplane pilots I know know how tehse maneuvers work and are good at picking a landing or takeoff lane where the sailboat is not going to immediately go if it should tack or jibe.

In short, the mixing of floatplane and boat traffic is not anywhere as dangerous or even tricky as it usually appears to non-pilots.

PS.* Taquan Air's planes have always been blue and white, although that's not to say they haven't had one in other colors in their fleet from time to time, like a lease or something.


-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 07:26:50 PM

Marin wrote:
*I've landed countless times in the busy channel in front of Ketchikan ..

Click to expand...

*Like this?:

Yep. Some of the cruise ships would anchor in the channel because it got them out of paying the docking fees. So not only did you have this big ugly "thing" in the channel but there were also all the shoreboats putting back and forth between the ship and the shore with wakes going everywhere. (You think wakes are annoying in a boat, they are downright dangerous---even small ones--- to a floatplane).

Ketchikan can be a particularly tricky place to land or takeoff. Not only do you have all the boats--- the boats are not the issue, their wakes are---- but there can be a lot of inbound traffic in the form of other floatplanes, plus the planes going in and out of the airport across from the town. Pus it's often windy and choppy water is no fun in a floatplane, even a relatively big one like a Beaver.

And then on top of it all, you have to be REALLY on the lookout for eagles. I don't know if this is still the case as we haven't flown into Ketchikan for awhile now, but it used to be that hundreds of eagles would sit in the trees up the hill behind the town and wait for the fish processors to flush out their gut lines. The gut lines empty into the middle of the channel on the bottom, and when they flush them out there is this big upwelling of gut and head laden water to the surface. The eagles all launch simultaneously and come down and pick up the fish parts. We were at the city dock on the townside waiting for customs once when this happened and it looked like the Battle of Britain with all these eagles swooping down and clearing our heads by a few feet on their way out to the gut "pool." The downdraft from their wings actually ruffled our hair as they went over.

Eagles, despite their looks, are one of the stupidest birds on the planet. They are, in essence, vultures with feathers on their heads. They would much rather steal food than work for it. And they have the same attitude in the air. They will not get out of the way of a plane. We've had them change course and fly at our Beaver at altitude to "challenge" it to the point where WE had to maneuver clear. Hawks don't do this. And I've flown through a huge cloud of ascendinding seagulls that lifted off a river bar right in front of us to the point where all we saw in the windshield was gulls and we actually ducked and threw our arms over our faces because we were sure a bunch of them were going to come through the windshield. Seagulls are spectacular flyers and we didn't hit a one.

But a common item in the Ketchikan ATIS broadcast that you listen to before contacting the tower is, "Caution eagles off the approach (or departure or both) end of the runway. They circle and soar and they will not budge an inch even if a 737 is barreling down on them. Ben Franklin was right in opposing the eagle as our national bird. He wanted the (wild) turkey, which, while not very good looking is way higher on the bird intelligence scale than the eagle. I like eagles a lot and they are magnificent birds but God are they dumb!


-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 07:46:23 PM

Marin,

Do floatplane pilots have specified areas where they can land and restricted areas where they can't? I know you should land into the wind to help reduce landing speed. The wind direction can change, thus determining landing locations and directions. So I guess I'm answering my own question; the water is yours. Obviously you're not going to set her down next to a Navy carrier... Do you have restrictions?

Yes, there are restrictions. You cannot land on a body of water that is closed to seaplanes. Which is a lot of them.

When a seaplane is on the water it is subject to the same regulations as a boat. So things like give-way and stand-on vessel rules all apply. These days the distance from vessels courtesy of*Homeland Security apply when landing, taking off, or taxiing.

But in terms of deciding exactly where to touch down and in what direction, that is totally up to the pilot with a very few exceptions. In Anchorage, AK, the Hood Lake seaplane base is under the control of a dedicated control tower. There are specific landing lanes on the lake (actually it's two connected lakes)*and you treat the lake as a wheelplane pilot treats a controlled airport.

In Juneau there is a seaplane pond or ditch running parallel to the airport*runway, and it is under the control of the same tower that controls the airport. This pond is to allow floatplanes with straight floats (as opposed to amphibious floats) to use the airport to pick up or drop off passengers. We go in there to refuel-- a truck drives over from the terminal.

In Vancouver, BC there is a control tower on top of one of the downtown highrises that controls the seaplane movements in the harbor in front of the city. Also, the control tower at YVR controls the seaplane activity on the Fraser River adjacent to the airport.

But for the most part seaplane pilots are on their own when determining where they want to land and takeoff. For example at Ketchikan I contact the airport tower when at the initial reporting points east or west of the city (Ketchikan's harbor actually lies east-west, not north-south) and tell them my intentions (to land in the harbor). They give me traffic advisories and wind*but they do not really "clear me to land." As I approach the harbor it's up to me to look at the boat traffic and wakes, other seaplane traffic, and determine where I am going to actually touch down.

Seaplane flying is one of the last truly independent forms of flying. If I screw up I flip the plane and it's nobody's fault but mine. If I taxi out to takeoff at Prince Rupert, for example, it's totally up to me to figure out if there are any logs floating in my proposed takeoff lane. Nobody's going to point them out to me, and if I hit one it's my fault I sank the plane.

Factors I take into account when determining where I'm going to land and my actual touchdown point are the wind direction, current direction (if I'm landing on a river), wave conditions, boat traffic, boat wakes (which hang around long after the boat is gone) and where I'm actually going on shore. Which dock or which patch of beach and how will I approach them. And like boating it's critical to figure out beforehand how you're going to depart a dock or a beach because that will partly or largely*determine how you're going to get onto it.

Unless one is flying a turbine, a floatplane has no brakes and no reverse. And if one is flying a single-engine seaplane you have steering on the water that can very easily be overcome by the wind. These are all factors you have to keep in mind at all times on the water as you figure out how to get onto or off a dock or beach.

You can't always land or takeoff into the wind, so you need to know crosswind techniques which are similar in principle but different in execution to crosswind techniques in a landplane. If the water is rough--- and it doesn't take very much to make water too rough for a floatplane-- there are techniques for landing and taking off that hopefully will not damage the plane (no shock absorbers on a floatplane-- rough water is like hitting concrete as far as the airframe is concerned). Glassy water can be extremely dangerous to land on for a couple of reasons, and there are techniques to deal with this.

There are rarely any windsocks or tower guys to tell you which way the wind is blowing. So you learn to determine the exact wind direction from looking down at the ripples on the water, the trees on shore, sailboat sails (if there are any around). Gusts can pick you up just as you're about to touch down so you learn to recognize them by how they appear on the water and you also*learn that the actual wind is out ahead of its evidence on the water so you have to anticipate it accordingly.* On a river you have to determine which is stronger, the wind or the current, and choose your landing direction based on your observations.

I have used birds on a few occasions to help me determine the wind direction when I was having a tough time figuring it out from looking at the water itself. I learned, for example, that Caspian terns almost always turn into the wind before starting their vertical plunge down to the water to get a fish. That helped us out at a lake deep in the Coast Range in BC once. And landing geese have been a handy guide on a few occasions although birds are very good at crosswind landings so can fool you if you aren't looking for other clues at the same time.

I got all my ratings--- Private, Commercial, Instrument, and Flight Instructor--- in landplanes in Hawaii. It was my first vacation trip to Alaska in 1973 that got me intrigued by floatplanes, but there weren't any in Hawaii at that time so I had to wait until I moved to Seattle to get my seaplane rating. Afer I got my Single Engine Sea rating in 1980 or thereabouts I flew both floatplanes and landplanes for a short time--- 172s and 180s on floats and a Turbo 206 on wheels. But after a few months of this I found the landplane flying to be totally boring, and once I started flying the Beaver on floats I lost what remaining interest I had in landlplanes and have never flown one since.


-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 09:36:41 PM

Marin wrote:
Yep. Some of the cruise ships would anchor in the channel because it got them out of paying the docking fees. So not only did you have this big ugly "thing" in the channel but there were also all the shoreboats putting back and forth between the ship and the shore with wakes going everywhere. (You think wakes are annoying in a boat, they are downright dangerous---even small ones--- to a floatplane).

Click to expand...

*My photo was taken from an anchored cruise ship.* The docks were fully occupied with four or five other cruise ships. ...* Those "shoreboats" are known as "tenders."* They are similar to ship's lifeboats but have two engines/propellers for improved maneuvering.

*Seemed like float planes were landing or taking off every couple of minutes.


-- Edited by markpierce on Tuesday 11th of October 2011 11:04:11 PM

markpierce wrote:
The docks were fully occupied with four or five other cruise ships.

Click to expand...

This is one reason why I despise cruise ships.** They have totally screwed up SE Alaska as well as just about every other place they go.* Yes, they dump a bunch of money into the economy and the locals have-- unfortunately--- come to depend on this income.**But to anyone who knew what Ketchikan was like before the advent of these attrocious monstrocities they call "cruise ships" today, it's been a real desecration.* Thank God they physically can't get into Petersburg or that town would be ruined as well.

Try walking around in Ketchikan when there are three or four cruise ships in port, each one of them crapping 3,000 or so people into the town.* All of them thinking they're in "Alaska."* It would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.* The Ketchikan they see is about as far removed from Alaska as one can get.* Might as well be in LA....

Eric lives in Alaska.* What the tourists see is a Disneyesque parody.

And yes, I know the service boats for the ships are called tenders but shoreboats works just as well.

But then there is Haines.

I hardly get off anymore.* Just me and the crow onboard.

markpierce wrote:
I hardly get off anymore.*

Click to expand...

I read an article awhile back by the head of one of the big cruise lines.* Carnival I think it was but maybe it was another one.* But he was explaining why the cruise ships keep getting bigger and bigger (there is at least one over a 1,000' now).* Some of them are so big they can no longer get into some of the cruise ports in the Carribean.* But, this guy said that's okay because our goal is to make the ship itself the destination and the purpose of going on the cruise.* If we provide enough entertainment, food, and activities on board the ship, the passengers will have no need or desire to get off.* Which apparently, according to him, is the goal these days.

So in that case, why take the ship away from the dock at all?* Think of all the fuel they'd save, which means they could lower the ticket cost a bunch and attract even more "passengers."* Or else take the ship off the dock, sail it just over the horizon so the passengers all feel like they're really at sea, and then anchor it*or drift around*for five days or whatever, and then sail it back in.

More often than not I don't get off the ship, usually because I'd already been there.* The ship is now the "destination."* I enjoy "at sea" days and*noticeable "rock and roll" because if the ship is rock-steady, one might as well stay at a resort.

Crossing the Atlantic by ship is much more enjoyable than on a plane and costs about the same.* My last one (Copenhagen to Cape Canaveral)*cost only $780 per person for 15 days, exclusive of alcohol.

markpierce wrote:
My last one (Copenhagen to Cape Canaveral)*cost only $780 per person for 15 days, exclusive of alcohol.

Click to expand...

To each his own.* That fifteen days would seem like fifteen years to me.* I can't think of anything more boring except maybe sitting in a room staring at a photograph of the ocean for fifteen days.* I spent nearly 30 years living in the middle of an ocean.** I've done my "ocean" time. *I'm sorry we (Boeing)*didn't procede with building the Sonic Cruiser because it would have cut the time to cross the things by quite a bit.* Not as nice as a Concorde but a lot better than slogging along over it for eight or nine hours.

It took Captain Vancouver more than*two years to go from England to Puget Sound.* And that was in a purpose-built ship with all the latest ship*technology that was available in 1791.* And people back then thought that was a pretty fast trip.* But if you dug up Vancouver today and said, "Hey, you want to go to Puget Sound again?* We'll give you a choice.* You can go on a sailing ship for two years again, or we'll take you to Heathrow, put you on BA Flight 49, and you'll be there in 9 hours," I bet he'd pick the BA flight.* I did the math once (roughly)*for a video I produced a few years ago.* The 747 has cut 10,071 hours off the trip between England and Puget Sound.* Which was the name of the video:* "10,071 Hours: How Everett Changed the World."

*


-- Edited by Marin on Wednesday 12th of October 2011 12:14:04 AM

It's good there are choices.* Even nowadays some people even cross (or dream of crossing)*oceans in small boats taking weeks to accomplish the task while being continually*bounced around, hoping the gear, body,*etcetera, doesn't break.* No thanks.

Has anyone seen this pictograph?* We found*them last summer. 2 locations

Not seen them ourselves. There are supposed to be pictographs on Cortes Island up in BC but we've not been where there are any (so far as we know).

There are some fairly visible ones at Walsh cove.

We have a few about a mile so of town.

The two pictographs are from going to Princess Louisa last summer.* One is a little south of the entrance to Vancouver Bay and the other is across from Marlborough Heights.* Very cool images.

*

Keith Olive

Willard 30


-- Edited by kolive on Friday 14th of October 2011 02:13:47 PM

Here's a few softballs for Marin to thank him for his contributions.* On #5 we need the location, and ID the boat and a/c type.

cheers

Bellingham Cold Storage ice machine, Active Cove on Patos Island, Garrison Bay (site of English Camp) on San Juan Island, Malibu Rapids, and Princess Louisa. We've not been to Princess Louisa by boat (contemplating maybe next fall) but have been in there many times in the Beaver. The boat's a Grand Banks but not so sure about the plane. My guess (or one guess) would be a Maule but I wouldn't bet any money on it. I suppose it could also be a Super Cub but it looks to me to be a bit too big for that. Another possibility could be a Citabria. The short wings are what led me to put that one in the list.


-- Edited by Marin on Monday 17th of October 2011 05:52:58 PM

All correct.* I just finished looking at as many Google photos as I could find of the float plane choices and agree*Maule is the best bet.

cheers

The give away is it's lack of any dihedral and short stubby wings.

Actually I got so focused on the wings and the paint job I forgot the doors. So it couldn't be a Citabria or a Super Cub because those planes are both tandem-place airplanes, not side-by-sides. As I've flown both Super Cubs and Citabrias you would think I would have remembered that but it's funny how you get focused on one thing and totally overlook a more important, really obvious thing. The reason I was and still am somewhat skeptical that the plane is a Maule is that the wings seem too short to me for a Maule (a plane I came very close to purchasing once so I've been around them some) , and while it's not as much as some other makes, a Maule does have dihedral in the wings (see photo).




-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 18th of October 2011 12:17:37 PM

Oh yes Definitely not a Maule now that I see that picture. I did notice it was a side by side but the flat wing has me stumped. Must be a homebuilt.

Could it be a TriPacer w droop tips? Don't see many homebuilts on floats. Notice how the cabin sides bulge a bit *...not slab sided at all.







-- Edited by nomadwilly on Tuesday 18th of October 2011 03:33:05 PM

nomadwilly wrote:
Could it be a TriPacer w droop tips? Don't see many homebuilts on floats. Notice how the cabin sides bulge a bit *...not slab sided at all.

Click to expand...

Don't think it's a Tri Pacer.* They*have diagnonal braces running from the outside upper surface of each horizontal stabilizer to partway up the*tail and I don't see that on the plane in the photo.* Also,*Tri-Pacers require an additional ventral fin when they are put on floats--- they need bigger feathers at the back of the arrow to keep their directional stability within bounds.* I dont' see a ventral fin on the plane in the photo, either.

I don't see any significant*bulge to the fuselage. The sides look pretty*flat to me, which is typical of fabric-covered planes which this appears to be.* The taper of the fuselage from the**tail to the cabin from this camera angle*makes it appear the sides might be bulging but I don't think they are.

There are some two-place and even four-place kitplanes that can be put on floats. I don't bother to keep up with the developments in kit and sport planes as there are so many of them and they come and go with great regularity.* Besides, none of them will do what we need to do with a floatplane so they aren't something that I would have any use for.* So it very well could be one of them.

However the floats on the plane seem to be mainstream floats--- they look like all-aluminum*Edos to me.* The few kitplanes I have seen or seen photos of on floats have had floats made specifically*for these smaller planes, usually out of fiberglass with flat tops.* The floats in the photo appear to have slightly curved tops which was an Edo characteristic in all but their largest floats.

Be interesting to know what the plane really is.



-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 18th of October 2011 06:16:51 PM


-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 18th of October 2011 06:19:04 PM

Attached are two photos that influenced my vote for Maule.* The first shows the distinctive shape of the horizontal stabilizer and the second shows a model with little or no wing dihederal.* I have very little experience in plane spotting but all the time in the world for interweb surfing.*

cheers

All Maule models have some dihedral. The wide angle lens used in the second shot masks the dihedral that's there. And the dead-on rear camera angle of your photo makes it difficult to tell if that wing is truly straight across or not. Most "established" designs like Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft, Maule, de Havilland, etc. use some dihedral in the wing--- it contributes to the plane's inherent stability.

The Maule is a good plane on floats although the rearward extension of the floats limits the dramatic takeoffs the plane is capable of on wheels. But a Maule would use one of the smaller Edo floats, which is what the floats in your photo appear to be.

So at this point I'd say a Maule is as good a guess as any and probably better than most. From having been around them, though, I just don't remember the wings being that short. But perhaps the paint job is providing some of that illusion. The one I came close to buying was painted like your second photo only red.