Beaver on skis
 

Beaver on skis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Flight training on lakes and rivers, frozen surface with up to 30 cm of snow on 20 cm ice. Weight is close to but less than max. Sea level. Terrain is up to 200 feet of hills with trees above the lake/river elevation.
Flying a Beaver compared with a C185.
Consider that you want to drag the lake before landing.
What minimum distance would you desire between the shores of the lake or along the river?
How much room would you want in order to make a 90 degree turn on the ice at, say, 60 knots tail up?
How would you decide your abort point? How much distance would you want ahead by the time you put on full power to takeoff again?
I might be a bit of a coward with this; I would appreciate input/advice to develop a procedure for this type of training.

I'd get 'er to take her skis off first...

:E

I tried this question on the Downunder forum (don't know why I thought those reprobates would have some good advice) and one of them posted a picture of real beavers on skis. Worth a look.

Boof head,

It may sound a little unhelpful and unkind, but answers to questions like these are very hard to quantify, and answer in a single message. This is years of experience type stuff. You're sort of asking "how long is a piece of string, which is in a box, supported by an uncertain surface". There are many things to be aware of in this type of operation, which you really only learn by doing them many times, in the company of a really experienced pilot.

Personally, I would not be landing a Beaver onto 20cm of ice, unless I knew that ice very well from recent personal inspection.

The safe amount of space for the types of manuevering you mention is very much determined by the pilot, and his sense of personal skill. It's kind of like buying a Rolls Royce; if you have to ask, you can't do it.

Seen from a different perspective, I wouldn't think to tell a pilot how to do the things you mention, then expect him to go out and do them safely. Landing on any snow has may hazards, unbroken snow, and snow covered ice just add to the hazards. Doing it with any confinement because of topography really complicates it.

There are so many things to be considered for any off airport operations, which are all best done based upon actual experience, not ground school.

There is a lot written about winter bush flying in Canada. Start searching some of the famous bush pilots, and the stores will come to light for you..

I hope that it is helpful to say that training this sort of flying is best left to people who are really familiar, based upon actual experience.

Good luck, Pilot DAR

Pilot dar
 

Well said, experience counts in these matters. Each surface of a lake/river is different and also depends on the day...the trend of the temperature in the past/present and the variable can continue till I run out of breath...

I know what you mean. I was on a lake yesterday in a 185 on skis and it looked great from the air, wtih blue ice, great looking cracks, clear and solid, a small layer of recent snow. Not worth dragging. But once on the lake, the drag was horrible, steering took almost full power and when I did a 360 to check the surface the tracks were real deep and filling with water. I continued the turn and got the hell out of there. Could not see the justification of getting stuck.
However my point was not how to fly on ice, thanks all the same. It was on what lake or river distance you would like to see for training. 6000 feet? 4000?

I have thousands of hours flying DC3's and Beavers on skis and I can't give you an answer because there are to many variables.

Is it a Brazillian Beaver or winterized?

How much room would you want in order to make a 90 degree turn on the ice at, say, 60 knots tail up?
This questions baffles me and sounds like a recipe for disaster...?

It's soon time for floats anyway.

"How much room would you want in order to make a 90 degree turn on the ice at, say, 60 knots tail up?"

In all my time up north I have NEVER seen any body do anything like this. And if you where to do it, and anybody saw you doing it, you would be the talk of the town for quite some time. And not in a good way either.......:ugh:

YES
 

I was thinking the same thing myself. I also can't remember the last time I flew a Beaver that wasn't in the air at 60 knots, except maybe waaaaay back in the Red Lake days on so called "company trips". or when I forgot my flaps ; (
If your taking off in a Beaver and you have to turn 90 degrees to get airborne what the hell are you doing there in the first place and you definately shouldn't be there for any training purposes. The best policy for ski work is land, stop and take off straight ahead. Majority of "F' Ups" always happen when you start screwing around on the ground in a tail dragger, especially when your relying on air rudder and brakes to steer. Just my opinion.

I wasn't thinking about taking off during a turn, but using the turn to avoid the edge of the lake once a decision was made to reject the takeoff. A Beaver locally was wrecked because the crew did not consider a reject even though the airplane was not flying despite their best effort. Instead of rejecting, they continued to try to force the airplane into the air (it felt light on the skis, the tail was up, etc) with the result that the elevators were ripped off by small trees adjacent to the lake shore and the airplane dropped back down into the trees, becoming a total loss. The three people on board were not hurt, thankfully.
It is, as you say, now seaplane season, but many of the problems remain the same. I personally had to reject two takeoffs last week because my airplane (not a float plane but a sea plane) had water in the hull due to a small leak, and I made the decision each time to reject just in time. The first time I had a chance to turn away from the shore, the second time I ran the nose onto the bank at normal docking speed, but that was luck, not judgement. (my seaplane will not come off the step easily, like a float plane will). All I knew was that even if I had become airborne at the time I decided to reject, I would not have cleared the trees ahead.
It is that situation the other crew were in, but they did not reject, and did not even consider it.
I am trying to determine why they did not reject, why the push on at all costs attitude seems to be common in ski (and water) pilots. Maybe it is because the edge of the safe flying area is not so well defined as a runway.
The crew of the airplane I am talking about were extremely experienced, but were doing training, not an operational flight. Every experienced ski plane pilot I have discussed this with said they would have landed on that lake to do what that crew was to do, with no thought it might not have been long enough (they had 1700 feet total and landed about 500 feet in, then ran a set of tracks before attempting to takeoff again). The less experienced ski pilots said the lake should have been at least a mile long.
What sort of guidelines should I give other crews that need to do similar training? I am thinking that they should only do training on lakes or rivers with at least 4000 feet available but when I write that it sounds too restrictive. However we don't have too many more Beavers to lose, and next time we might lose one of the crew, so I need to come up with something. I am figuring that they will not know what the condition of the ice or snow is when they land, and landing in their own tracks is not practical when training a new ski pilot, nor is accuracy of touchdown, so I want to provide a reasonable margin for safety. But not shut it down by putting too many limitations on it. And I will not be flying the training flights or training the instructors, so I have no control over the quality of instruction.

I see what your looking for now...
 

I can see where your going with this. The short and simple answer to your question is "experience".
There is no fixed answer for any given situation, water or snow, altitude, temperature, right down to individual A/C or even pilot physical conditions such as fatigue or hang over...
I have flown many different Beavers, 185's and each one performed differently. So a guy with a lot of experience can take the same plane into a smaller spot than someone who doesn't, and the same pilot can't do it with even a different airplane of the same type if it doesn't work as good. There simply is no simple explaination to the problem. You cannot train for it, it comes only with practice and work experience. Instructors should not be showing students that kind of stuff in my opinion. As far as I am concerned the instructor needs to teach a student the basics on how to safely fly the aircraft. Then it's up to the operator to train that employee to a level necessary based on their needs and the employees experience level. You can't instruct a student on how to be a bush pilot. What works in BC won't work in Manitoba. Just try and take off downwind in Manitoba on a hot summer day and see how long you'll be employed for. In BC wind is a lot lower on the list for take off decisions. Water and terrain dictate your actions. You cannot train a pilot who is ready to go out and fly the line all over this country and nobody should expect that.
I used to be able to guess right down to 50 pounds how much weight I could take on a given day in the 185 in the small pond in Newfoundland. There's no way in hell I could do that now, given the same plane and the same lakes. I have 3 times the experience now as then, but not there, and not in a 185 for a long time. So really it comes down to checking your EGO at the door and using judgement. Those pilots that piled her in at the end of the lake knew damn well they were going to do it. You have to be able to know when your licked and suffer the embarassment. I have never had a problem knowing when to call it off. The golden rule is "When in Doubt" DONT. That kind of thing even comes right down to the decision to shut down and dig out a wheel or ski, or use your paddle to push off the rocks...lots of airplanes wrecked on taxi because the pilot was too stuborn to admit he screwed up and get out and get wet or dirty.
We take an 8000 pound A/C into 400 feet here all day long. We service camps in 400 feet. Thats 2000 pounds in and 2000 pounds out. Sound crazy? It's no different than a guy who shoots an ILS down to minumums. It comes down to making the decision at the right time, and not worrying about ego. If I don't have my wheels down on the bags, it's full power and go around. Sometimes 2-3 times in a new spot, or a crosswind or just when you screw it up.
Two very experienced pilots in the same aircraft? Likely two high time PIC or two Captains? Now there is a recipe of ego + ego = disaster. Hopefully the new culture of SMS will encourage people to share each others mistakes without the usual burning at the stake from peers and fellow pilots. Think it will never happen to you? Think again.
I have recently had to come to terms with age. I almost had a bad accident last year because I was too tired to be working, but too stubborn to admit it. Thats no different than those guys who pushed the take off a past the decision point. In fact it's exactly the same thing. Hope it helps. Fly safe.

Asking for and getting advice about how to train pilots on the internet is not the best idea for the simple reason one has no idea who is giving you advice.

I agree, but knowledge helps to make a sound decision. I hate to be stuck at "Sh1t happens".