planeandpilotmag.com 39land going out to sea and into the wind.
So that is what I did , making a smooth
landing in the relatively calm sea.
We taxied to the fuel dock, and while
I illed the gas tank, Bill went to ill our
bottles with fresh water that was pouring
from a pipe driven into the mountain.
Ocean Falls gets 300 inches of rain
every year, and it just pours out of these
pipes all day and night.
We taxied to the end of the inlet,
avoiding the log booms loating just of
shore, and took of for the Dean River
ishing camp. We lew over the camp’s
dock and circled to land in front of a
beautiful, 500-foot waterfall at the end
of the inlet. Felix, our guide, met us at
his dock and insisted that we quickly
unload and tie the tail of the plane to
his dock and the bow to a shoreline
tree with plenty of slack because the
tide was running out, and the plane and
his dock would soon be sitting on the
muddy bottom.
We ished until dusk and all day
Saturday, catching Coho salmon and
large steelhead. Sunday morning a 300-
foot ceiling was dishing out a steady
coastal rain, and I was trying to decide
whether to wait and see if it improved or
just ly down the inlet a short distance to
the same “Link Lake backdoor approach”
we had used on Friday to land into the
wind at Ocean Falls.
Bob looked at the sky and asked, “How
bad is it?” I replied, “It’s okay if it stays
the way it is.”
Bob’s response was, “What you’re say-
ing is, it would be much too dangerous
to ly if it gets the slightest bit worse.” I
said, “Right,” and we jumped in the plane
and took of.
We were lying just under the 300-foot
ceiling in the rain when we got to the
“Link Lake back door” pass we had used
on Friday. It was in the clouds above the
300-foot ceiling, so we had to ly out to
the coast and north a few miles to enter
Ocean Falls directly from the sea. his
set us up with a 20 mph tailwind, and
the 300-foot ceiling created a scary box
with granite walls on both sides and a
mountain straight ahead. I was laps
down, ready to foolishly try a downwind
landing, when I saw the huge log booms
lashing by right under us at 75 mph (my
55 mph landing airspeed, plus a 20 mph
tailwind). hinking I was trapped in a box
and would have to land straight ahead,
I pulled the power of as soon as the log
booms were behind us and started hit-
ting the water too fast to settle on.
Bob told me we hit seven times. We
were approaching the end of the inlet,
so I added full power and pulled up
to about 100 feet, adding lots of right
rudder to make a tight turn within the
granite walls.
Once we were facing into the wind,
our speed over the water dropped from75 mph downwind (55 plus 20) to 35mph
(55 minus 20) into the wind, still a rough
landing in the 3-foot swells. But at least
I was on the water as a boat—no longer
an airplane! I dropped the water rudder
and started a right turn toward the fuel
dock, but the right wing started dragging
in the water. I saw that the right sponson
that keeps the wing out of the water had
been ripped of, probably by an unseen
log boom. Continuing in this direction
would allow the wind to get under the
left wing, forcing the right wing under
water and quickly causing us to capsize.
I immediately reversed course away
from the fuel dock and toward the oppo-
site rocky, forested shore. his kept the
right wing into the wind and out of the
water while the left wing sponson kept
the left wing just above the waves. We hit
the shore just where a log had washed
up, which provided a landing bufer.
Bob jumped onto the slippery log
and secured the plane while Bill and I
struggled to pump air into the dinghy.
I jumped into the ice-cold water up to
my armpits and tied the inlated dinghy
under the right wing to replace the lost
sponson. hat’s just about the time two
Good Samaritan rescue boats arrived.
Bob and Bill jumped into the irst boat,
and I stayed in the plane and switched
on the electric bilge pump as the second
boat attached a towline. He towed me
back to a wooden seaplane ramp with
the pump spraying water out of the leak-
ing hull (we popped a few hull rivets),
and the dinghy kept the damaged right
wing out of the water.
My call to Ed went as expected. When❯ ❯ “This set us up with
a 20 mph tailwind, and
the 300-foot ceiling
created a scary box with
granite walls on both
sides and a mountain
straight ahead.”