Todd Peterson
03-04-2008, 09:52 AM
Well I just got back from a great trip into the Utah backcountry for another upcoming video. As always the views are magnificent at most of these strips and you just don't want to leave. The strips were considerably more difficult this time as the surface of many strips was either really rough or soft. Most all had a lot of rocks. I installed 29 inch Bushwheels with flexible sidewalls for this trip expecting the worst.
One of the strips that really interested me is called Poison Spring and it is featured in Galen Hanselman's FLY UTAH. He rated this strip extremely hazardous and the most difficult strip in his book. John Gregory flew in for the book with his pumped up Super Cub with 31 inch Bushwheels so you know it's really bad. I decided to stop by for a visit and see just how bad it really is. The strip sits on top of a mesa and it is really short, high elevation, rough, rocky, lots of blow sand, brush, with ridges, dips and bumps. It is also very chopped up with unusable parts. One end of the strip has a thousand foot drop off into the canyon below and the other end has a thousand foot high cliff. Galen recommended going in from the valley and departing toward the valley. I felt better going in the opposite direction. This put the approach up against the canyon wall landing and heading for the canyon wall on departure. The approach went well and I had to hop over a depression at the end of the strip to land. It was rough but manageable. At times the Bushwheels were sinking into the dirt up to a couple of inches so it was also really soft. Take off was likewise interesting. I put the power in on a little shelf I parked on with a couple of hundred feet ahead of me before a 16 foot drop off. To get to the drop off I had to go through a deep depression which made things interesting. The take off went well and I turned away from the canyon wall by mid field.
I thought about this trip on the way home and came to a couple of conclusions. The performance of the King Katmai is absolutely staggering and I have now shown it can easily handle the worst strips in Idaho and Utah. Poison Spring like Dewey Moore and Mile Hi are very difficult and dangerous strips that pose some real problems. One has to be on his game plan to operate safely in this enviroment and you can expect some random damge from rocks, etc. if you fly to these strips often enough. At Poison Spring I picked up a rock in the leading edge of the left horizontal stablizer which had probably been thrown up from a tire. I also hit the plastic tail cone on a ridge during the landing. That's how bad it is. What this tells me is that for the normally difficult backcountry strips this airplane will provide a huge margin of safety even though the strips are short and many are high elevation. I visited many strips on this trip that were over a thousand foot in length and had a ball. The surface of these strips were good with easy approaches. A couple were on the backside of a mountain and the views were just breath taking as was the solitude. For those of you wanting to visit the backcountry these are the strips to consider. A lot of fun with little hazard.
I took a video of the visit to Poison Spring and it is now posted under Adventures in the Katmai section of our website. I hope you enjoy it.
One of the strips that really interested me is called Poison Spring and it is featured in Galen Hanselman's FLY UTAH. He rated this strip extremely hazardous and the most difficult strip in his book. John Gregory flew in for the book with his pumped up Super Cub with 31 inch Bushwheels so you know it's really bad. I decided to stop by for a visit and see just how bad it really is. The strip sits on top of a mesa and it is really short, high elevation, rough, rocky, lots of blow sand, brush, with ridges, dips and bumps. It is also very chopped up with unusable parts. One end of the strip has a thousand foot drop off into the canyon below and the other end has a thousand foot high cliff. Galen recommended going in from the valley and departing toward the valley. I felt better going in the opposite direction. This put the approach up against the canyon wall landing and heading for the canyon wall on departure. The approach went well and I had to hop over a depression at the end of the strip to land. It was rough but manageable. At times the Bushwheels were sinking into the dirt up to a couple of inches so it was also really soft. Take off was likewise interesting. I put the power in on a little shelf I parked on with a couple of hundred feet ahead of me before a 16 foot drop off. To get to the drop off I had to go through a deep depression which made things interesting. The take off went well and I turned away from the canyon wall by mid field.
I thought about this trip on the way home and came to a couple of conclusions. The performance of the King Katmai is absolutely staggering and I have now shown it can easily handle the worst strips in Idaho and Utah. Poison Spring like Dewey Moore and Mile Hi are very difficult and dangerous strips that pose some real problems. One has to be on his game plan to operate safely in this enviroment and you can expect some random damge from rocks, etc. if you fly to these strips often enough. At Poison Spring I picked up a rock in the leading edge of the left horizontal stablizer which had probably been thrown up from a tire. I also hit the plastic tail cone on a ridge during the landing. That's how bad it is. What this tells me is that for the normally difficult backcountry strips this airplane will provide a huge margin of safety even though the strips are short and many are high elevation. I visited many strips on this trip that were over a thousand foot in length and had a ball. The surface of these strips were good with easy approaches. A couple were on the backside of a mountain and the views were just breath taking as was the solitude. For those of you wanting to visit the backcountry these are the strips to consider. A lot of fun with little hazard.
I took a video of the visit to Poison Spring and it is now posted under Adventures in the Katmai section of our website. I hope you enjoy it.