On Line Flight Sunday 4/22

OK Naresh, remember, this was your idea. Here's what I propose. Let's meet at 1800 Z tomorrow (that's UTC for you guys in the know) on the ramp at the main strip in Talkeetna, Alaska (PATK). Plan to show up in an aircraft suitable for bush flying. Either a ski plane or a float plane will work. We have a couple of jobs to do for some wealthy clients. The principal task is to ferry some businessmen to a hunting and fishing lodge at the south end of Chelatna Lake. Chelatna Lake is a real place and shows up in the stock FS2004 scenery, but isn't shown on the map in FSNavigator. It's about 40 miles WNW of Talkeetna. But there are some complications. First of all, these guys want the grand tour of Mt. McKinley (now usually called Denali), which is about 40 miles from Talketna on a bearing of about 305 deg. Denali is the highest point in North America at 20,300'. The plan is for the non-ski equipped aircraft to head up to Denali by way of the Ruth Glacier, flying up the scenic Ruth Gorge (also a real place I've been, well rendered in the FS2004 scenery and really impressive in real life), into the Ruth Amphitheater and then climb to 20,000' to do a fly through between the north and south summits of the mountain, before turning southwest and descending to Cheltna Lake, where you will land on the south end of the lake, where the lodge is located. Meanwhile, those of us with ski equipped planes with real low stall speeds will head out to the NW from Talkeetna to the foot of the Kahiltna Glacier, which is just east of Chelatna Lake. We'll fly up the glacier and land at the base camp for the standard West Buttress ascent route on Denali. This is a pretty flat region on the glacier at about 10,000' near the head of the glacier and just under Mt. Foraker, the second highest peak in the area. We'll drop off supplies for the climbers camped there and then turn around and take off from the glacier. Since we'll have ski equipped aircraft, we won't be able to land on Lake Chelatna, but I've checked it out and found a very flat area on the east edge of the lake, just north of the outlet, where we can land. After, we're all assembled at the lodge, we can fly back to the strip in Talketna and enjoy a brew or two in the hotel there.

I found a really great airplane for this kind of flying. It's the Maule 7-260, which comes in six variants and can be downloaded at flightsim.com (M7260_V1.ZIP and upgrade M7260_11.ZIP). I haven't installed the upgrade yet, but the basic aircraft is superb for this kind of flying. I'll provide a basic orientation briefing before we take-off tomorrow from Talkeetna, so that everyone will know about where they're headed. Remember that this is VFR flying. There's a VOR at Talkeetna, but otherwise, Navaids are pretty much absent. We will fly in good weather, so visibility should be excellent and we won't crank in any crosswinds to complicate those touchy landings.

I'll post a FSNavigator page in the photo section to give you the basic relationships between Talkeetna, Denali and Lake Chelatna, but other than that, we'll just have to recognize the terrain on sight.

Mike