The rescue of the downed Beech pilot

Photo: Departing 09, that's the frozen Yentna and Skwentna buildings dead ahead.

When I last left you, I had arrived at Skwentna Airport, to transfer bulk unleaded gas from Rui's wrecked Beech-18 to mine. After about forty minutes we got all fuel transferred and hoses loaded. After we were seated in the Twin-Beech, I suggested to Rui, that was was planning a departure from Rwy-27. This gasoline was suppose be delivered to the townsite crossed the river. My plan was to lift off, then pull power and land on the river ice. I taxied out and with all checks complete I turned around and lined up for departure with the townsite straight ahead. Took a quick check of engine temps and pressures, locked tail wheel and added power smoothly (with the bulk fuel we still were 409# under max gross). My plan was to take off, then after passing the end of the runway, then throttle back and land on the frozen river. Well things happened quickly and by the time I brought power back to 29 inches I was a hundred feet above the end of the rwy, and 25 feet would have been perfect. I did try to get down but I didn't like the looks of things, and we didn't need to wreck another Beech-18, so I throttled up and got out of there. We made a wide circle around, got the approach speed at 90, MP 25 inches and only one notch of flaps, and had a nice power on landing. I keep enough power on to keep the tail in the air for a high speed taxi to the townsite. With the river ice kind of rough I decided to throttle back and ease the tailwheel onto the ice. We parked near the gas pump and unloaded the 300-gallon of gas. I had figured a flight time of 45-seconds, but it turned out to be around 8-minutes.

We dumped the fuel and took off, and with a light load in didn't take long. We hit some snow showers shortly after take off, but the WX got better before we arrived in the Anchorage area. We landed on Rwy-6R and taxied to the fuel farm. It was nice to get out of the office for a few hours. Total flight time, 1:05

Snowboss

Photo: Beech18 unloading fuel at Skwentna checkpoint.