Monday, December 30, 2013

Nine Lives?

     About ten of the blogs I follow include cats to some degree. Some post about half the time on their cats and some the cats are only mentioned from time to time. I must say that there are some very well looked after cats out there.

    So thinking about cats reminded me of the "cats have nine lives thing." I got thinking that people probably have a number of lives. I'm sure I've used up a number of my nine lives.

    One of the nine lives I remember using up has to do with an airplane incident. I like flying and have flown for many hours in bush planes. 

    One September afternoon a pilot stopped at Wakeham Bay and was going on to Sugluk to drop off some freight and then back to Wakeham Bay to over night. The flight was about 3 hours return. September days there have shortened. The weather has gotten pretty chilly.

    The flight up was pleasant and we only stayed a few minutes to unload freight and started back. We expected to land just after sunset before it got dark.

   About half way through the flight we noticed the wings icing up. We were flying a few miles from Hudson strait so the humidity was high. As soon as the moisture hit the wings it froze. A few minutes later we had to pull the throttle back to have enough power to remain level. A few minutes later more power. What should we do? Land and bash off the ice. If we did this it would be too dark to take off and we would have to overnight on a lake. Losing altitude was not the only danger.  If the ice formed unevenly and one wing became heavier there would be another very nasty problem to control.

    The pilot opted to continue the flight. Because of the extra weight we flew slower and arrived at home just before it got dark. The pilot pulled the throttle back for a normal approach. The airplane dropped like a rock. He pulled the throttle back for full power and we just got things under control before we hit the water. Needless to say, it was a hard landing even on water.

   So there went one of my nine lives. It was an experience I'll never forget.

29 comments:

  1. Oh my! I bet the pucker factor was pretty high that day! Hubby had a few, yep a few! "ordeals" in an ultra light. Yea, on their way to pick up "supplies", (beer). Crash landing in a wheat field! Oh the stories. I think he has used up more then his 9 lives!

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    1. You've got it right that there are stories and yes lots of close calls. It's not that one thing goes wrong but several things go wrong at the same time.

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  2. That would be scary.
    I have never been on a float plane it must be fun to land on the water! :)

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    1. Yes, float planes are fun , but I also flew on skiis, helicopters and flying boats all fun.

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  3. Oh that sounds pretty scary to me. It's a good thing your pilot knew what he was doing. Did you continue to enjoy flying just as much after that?

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    1. We did take a chance I still enjoy flying but have not been on small planes very much lately .

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  4. That is definitely a life used up.
    Interesting that icing occurred at low altitude but I forget how cold it can be where you live.

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    1. It was a time of year and day when humidity was high and temps below freezing.

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  5. That must have been a scary expierence, I am never afraid in an aeroplane, I love to fly.

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    1. It was interesting in that we watched the ice carefully and hoped that it would quit forming.

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  6. Wing icing has brought more than one plane down. I'm so glad you had an extra life hanging around for that one, Red! :-)

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    1. You would know about icing. These planes didn't have deicer and at that time very little deicing was done.

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  7. oh, dear. that sounds like it was bad. i had one cessna incident where, after take-off, the pilot couldn't get the landing gear to come back up so he tried circling and diving to try to force it to collapse. it never did, so we had to land and take a commercial flight to our destination. the guy at the tower said that 'forcing' thing was a very bad idea. i can only imagine if it had worked, what we'd have done if we couldn't have gotten it back down.

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    1. Those situations are hazardous as you don't know if the wheels will decide to collapse as you are landing!

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  8. Yikes scary. Will you tell us about the other eight? I suspect Alaska living can be on the edge...

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    1. I'll probably post a few of these near misses.

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  9. Amazing to experience. I was in a airliner that kept back firing from sleet during three attempts to takeoff and wondered what the heck was going to happen.

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    1. Three take off tries would be a little unnerving.

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  10. I can almost feel your heart pounding in this story. I know mine was. Happy New Year.

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    1. We were busy checking how things were going and also watching the clock.

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  11. That sounds scary! I probably burned most of my 9 lives by the time I was 25. Most of that was due to excessive drinking and other dumb stuff. I've had a couple of close calls while hiking and a near death experience while boating on Kootenay Lake. I guess driving is probably the most dangerous thing any of us do and I drive more than most - about 60 or 70 thousand kilometers a year.

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    1. If you count those things we'd all need about 29 lives because we did some incredibly stupid things.

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  12. I am afraid of flying, although I have done it pretty often, and I hate being out on the water away from land. Just call me a scaredy cat...to continue the cat theme.

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  13. I'm a very skittish flyer, so that probably would have cured me on flying!!

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    1. I would say the same to you as I said to Tabor.

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  14. I've had two very close-to-call incidents when flying in small planes: one due to a storm and the other to clear air turbulence but neither was as scary as that: the first because I just wasn't scared (irrational though that was at the time) and the second because it happened so suddenly I didn't have time to be scared. Flying can be scary but then so can crossing a road (I've lost several friends that way!).

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    1. You make a very valid point about the safety of crossing a road. Safety is a huge factor in flying.

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  15. Sounds scary! And yup, that would certainly use up one of the nine lives!

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