What do you mean, ‘We’re stuck?’
My buddy Chris looked at me like I’d suddenly decided to try some outrageous joke to start the day. I was standing in the shallow water beside my Cessna 182 amphibious floatplane, which had carried us into the majestic Alaskan backcountry and was now the source of my concern. As I waded through the muddy water, it was becoming obvious that the remote lake near Ketchikan had conspired with the lesser gods of fortune to ruin our day.
When I learned to fly floatplanes, it was all happy times and great fun on the lakes of central Texas. We would launch from the paved runway, retract the gear, and head out to one of the nearby waterways to practice takeoffs and landings. Our focus was on learning the necessary skills to safely operate the Piper Super Cub on the usually calm waters of the Highland Lakes. The biggest challenge seemed to be learning to dock the floatplane without damaging something.
Sometimes we would beach the airplane on a sandy shoreline for a brief period while we reviewed our maneuvers, grabbed a bite to eat, and simply enjoyed the experience. Most of the time, I would turn the floatplane setting the tails of the floats onto the shore in order to make our departure a simple matter of climbing in, starting the engine, and with a burst of throttle, sliding into the deeper water and going about our day.
In short, I was the…
Source www.planeandpilotmag.com
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