Great Husky Flying Day
by George Mandes

The weather was incredible in Homer today -- clear skies and very light wind. I spent two hours playing "follow the leader" chasing Charlie around in a Husky on wheels.
Between the winter weather, snow covering our off airport landing spots, and travel, I haven't gotten much time flying the Husky lately. It is amazing how quickly you lose the highest level of proficiency in the off airport ops with a few months of little Husky flying off airport. Ski flying just is not a substitute for the Bushwheel ops. The first issue was recalibrating my eye balls to Husky approach speeds of 45"50 mph IAS after two weeks and 25 hours of flying the jet.

Charlie rolled her tires and then came around and landed on a 500 foot beach. I needed to roll my tires about a half dozen times to get comfortable at seeing the swale at the start of the beach, getting comfortable with holding enough upslope aileron for the grade of the beach, and the larger rocks around. Funny thing is that I use this beach with the 185 when I feel "on."

Next play spot was a frozen lake at the base of a glacier with snow drifts. There was about 300 feet of exposed glare ice, and the trick was to hug the shore for references, and make a minimum speed three point and just let it roll out with the stick back and stop when you ran out of energy. My first attempt, I didn't immediately close the throttle and between that and the nil braking, I just cobbed it and went around. Next landing attempt, I closed the throttle as I stalled it on, and pulsed the brakes with manual "anti-skid" for slightly better deceleration that just letting it roll out. On take-off, rather than back taxi on the ice, I started with the nose slightly right to counter the left yawing effect of adding power on the glare ice, and took off in a three point attitude to protect the prop with the wind rows of snow.

Charlie next worked her way into a 1,000 foot practice strip that we regularly use -- except that it was snow covered. After a number of passes to assess her tracks in the snow, she committed. About that time, we were both hungry, so we returned to Homer.

What a beautiful day around Homer!