Winter Comes to the Arctic

Sunday October 9th: A sustained high pressure has dominated the weather pattern in the Interior with nearly 10 days of sunshine, clear skies and slowly dropping temperatures. I took off from Petersen Field at 10:30 heading North.
As I flew North, winter's grip became more evident.

The first pictures show the Upper Yukon Flats starting at the lower mouth of Beaver Creek coming into the Yukon River, then more and more ice forming the banks of the Yukon, then the approach to
my favorite landing spot on the Yukon just  downstream from the village of Beaver

 The bar is at the bend in the river .

Here I am setting up for approach and fly over.

My favorite spot device transmits my location 

and safe landing.

Ice creeps out from the bank.

Up the Hodzana with Lone Mountain 

in the distance.

Ice drifting down the river.

Great place to set the Spot Device!

Summer's salmon.

The Lower Hodzana Bar from the air.

Lone Mountain - THE landmark for this part of the Yukon Valley!

The other landmark: Victoria Mountain at 9:00 o'clock

means 45 minutes to home base!

Flight in a WW2 era Navy Biplane

Today I had the enormous privilege and pleasure of flying for an hour with Andy Bibber in his beautiful N3N-3 Naval Biplane out of Fairbanks International. With its huge combined wing span and  powerful Pratt and Whitney radial engine this airplane is a powerful performer. Andy demonstrated the gamut of tough aerobatic maneuvers with great skill. A few pictures follow.

(photos courtesy of Loy McManus)

Andy Bibber by his plane