Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Steve's Video Of The Day: de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver "Grass-Landing!"
Many "armchair" pilots have heard of "Operators" landing straight-float equipped aircraft on a bare grass, or snow-covered surface, successfully and safely (and sometimes unsuccessfully). This is not myth, but a practice used infrequently, but nonetheless still used. It is used usually to get the aircraft close to the hangar for maintenance, or to be stored for winter. There obviously is an increase in risk, but flying is "risk management", so an experienced pilot weighs all the factors, and makes his decision whether to attempt a hard-surface landing on floats, or not. I personally do not like to see aircraft landed on hard surfaces on floats, as it puts all the weight of the craft on the keels. When a float is in water, it displaces, and the weight is spread over a large area. Any pilot who flies all summer with a "keel leak" in the floats knows better "curse words" than Yosemite Sam. Bob Munro and Kenmore Air used to fly their Beavers onto Mount Olympus on floats and land on snow-covered glaciers. Talk about real "bush-flying". Anyways, watch a float-equipped Beaver land on the grass, and enjoy the sound of the 450 HP Pratt and Whitney R-985 "Wasp Jr."!
VIDEO - de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver "Grass-Landing!"
VIDEO - de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver "Grass-Landing!"
