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Lewis and Clark Route by Parachute

Bob at Lincoln, MT. - Thursday, July 1, 2004

Thursday, July 1, 2004

I met Larry Chase in Spokane and we drove on to Lincoln, MT arriving by 4:30 P.M.  Jeff was not quite finished but by 5:30 we loaded the PPC on the pickup and headed for the airport where we started the engine and checked things over.

After Jeff left, we kept checking and Larry noticed two loose nuts (not us).  The lines looked OK especially after the stress they had on the power line.  We only had to realign a bit.  I then took it up for a test flight which turned out fine.  It handled normally and climbed off the runway without any problem, proving the reason for not climbing 10 days ago was not the altitude but downdrafts at the east end of the runway.

The weather looks rough tonight with low clouds and dark on the bottom.  Hope we can go in the morning.

Bob

Friday, July 2, 2004

Woke up in the night with the sound of rain on the roof of the motel, not very encouraging for morning.  By 5:30 A.M. the rain stopped and we went to the airport at 6 with an apple for breakfast and not too much hope of leaving quickly.  But by the time we got there the sky was mostly clear and things looked pretty good.

We tried to warm up the engine first to let things dry out from the rain.  The humidity was 90% and fog was forming in places.  When we wiped off the seat and windshield the moisture formed again quickly.  When we tried the engine it would not start.  We thought it was flooded and tried again several times at full throttle with no success.  We dried and warmed the sparkplugs and the filters, it still wouldn't start.  Meanwhile the sky was looking better all the time.  I was getting frustated with the delay and hoped the battery didn't run down.

After 30 minutes, Larry happened to look at the exhaust and saw the plug we placed in it the night before to keep the mositure out.  When I put it in, I told Larry we would forget about it and wonder why it wouldn't run.  Needless to say, with it removed the engine fired up promptly.

I finally left at 7 A.M. and took a direct course for Townsend by taking a short cut across the mountains that Larry would have to go around.  Before leaving the runway we tried the radios which were OK.  As Leonard had mentioned, by the time he got in the pickup to leave I would be out of sight.  That was the case with Larry.  I tried to call back to him but found I got no answer.  It had been working just a few minutes before but I noticed the frequency had changed.  When I tried to correct it, it was frozen in place.  I fiddled with it for the next two hours without success.

I made great time by picking up a little tail wind at 7000 feet.  It was only 9 A.M. when I landed at Townsend.  But when I landed Larry was not there.  I dug out my cell phone and it actually worked in that area.  I got him to tell him I was down at the destination.  He was relieved as he had not been able to contact me by radio and was afraid I had gone down somewhere out in the trees.  He backtracked into Lincoln looking for me for awhile and then started out checking each airport as he went.  By the time I called him he was just north of Helena, about half way.

While waiting for Larry, the fixed base operator helped me try to locate the problem with the radio.  We finally decided it was the radio itself because it wouldn't work in his plane either.  The owners were having a ultra lite gathering coming up for the weekend and thought I was an early arrival.

When Larry arrived we refueled and traded radios so I could talk to him in case of a change in landing plans and where I was part of the time anyway.

We picked the next landing spot for refueling that the fixed base operator recommended bout 45 air miles away.  Again it required going over a mountain range, I went to the elevation of 8000 feet as some of the peaks were at 7600 ft.  I got another good tail wind at that elevation and was doing 35- 40 mph ground speed again.  On the way I was surprised when Larry called me on the radio that had quit sending.  I was able to tell him I had enough fuel to go to the next airport, Big Timber which was 250 miles from Lincoln.  Again I had to go over another mountain range, the lower part because the high part was probably 10,000 ft.

Continental Divide, MT

The tail wind was still with me on the way up and over the mountain.  I noticed cloud buildups on a range of mountains to the south.  Watching them I decided they had the same tail wind I did and were headed for the same airport.  It was about then my radio went out again, but I could still hear Larry.  He had beat me to Big Timber and saw me coming in.  The last 20 miles the tail winds were up to 30 mph so I was moving at 60 mph.  I beat the thunder storm but had to contend with the stiff wind on landing at 2 P.M.

We feel good because the last of the Continental Divide has now been passed.  All airports will now be lower and the land flatter which is a relief.

Bob

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