Alaska Journal

[TC215]

She'll probably get the hang of it if she sticks with it.

[GJM]

A Jet Ranger is like the Glock 19 of the helicopter world. Does everything good enough but nothing great except to generally be reliable and predictable. A 500 and 407 hovers better and lands off airport easier.

[TC215]

A Jet Ranger is like the Glock 19 of the helicopter world. Does everything good enough but nothing great except to generally be reliable and predictable. A 500 and 407 hovers better and lands off airport easier.

The instructor I did my instrument and CFI with flew medevac helicopters. He raved about the 407 after they upgraded from a 206L. Said it had a ton of power.

I really enjoyed flying the 500 around with doors off. It was like a (much more expensive) Cub.

[GJM]

The instructor I did my instrument and CFI with flew medevac helicopters. He raved about the 407 after they upgraded from a 206L. Said it had a ton of power.

I really enjoyed flying the 500 around with doors off. It was like a (much more expensive) Cub.

I have well over 500 hours flying a 407, and it is far and away the best flying helicopter I have flown. Gobs of power, long legs, fast, hovers great, autorotates great and amazing skid gear for off airport ops.

[TGS]

I always thought of the 206 as a Makarov and the Glock 19 as a 412.

The one is just big enough to be annoying but doesn't give you enough power or capacity if you're looking to do anything serious. The other is a serious worker.

The 212 is a single stack service pistol, in comparison. 😉

So what's the 500 then? Is the 520 NOTAR a suppressed 300 Blackout PDW?

[GJM]

The new Whistle Pro product has all sorts of interesting information. Recently, we saw a raw area on Astro’s left rear paw, most likely from cactus on a walk. This morning, my wife found this on Whistle.



That led to this!

[JHC]

My wife was flying and shows promise.

Of course she is an ATP Rotorcraft and has been flying turbine helicopters over 15 years.

In the landing vid, the display was painting dark over and over. Is that a function of how the camera lens captures the screen or do your eyes see the same thing?


2nd question, how much ammo/#mags do you tote out for such a remote hike?

[GJM]

In the landing vid, the display was painting dark over and over. Is that a function of how the camera lens captures the screen or do your eyes see the same thing?


2nd question, how much ammo/#mags do you tote out for such a remote hike?

That refresh rate of the Garmin displays is visible on video but not to your eyes while looking at them.

I bring my pistol and a spare mag, a 20 round mag in the PDW and a 30 round spare. My wife has her pistol and a spare mag. There are generally a few more mags in my pack in the aircraft.

[GJM]

One of the warmest days of 2020, with it hitting about 90F this afternoon. We use a swamp jacket on Astro, that we soak with water, and it seems to make it 15 degrees cooler for up to an hour for her. Here she is just now heading for the desert, with her sore foot in a protective boot.

[Clusterfrack]

One of the warmest days of 2020, with it hitting about 90F this afternoon. We use a swamp jacket on Astro, that we soak with water, and it seems to make it 15 degrees cooler for up to an hour for her. Here she is just now heading for the desert, with her sore foot in a protective boot.

That looks like an excellent hot weather dog coat. As you know, dogs can overheat very quickly if they get too hot to pant. That happened to a colleague's Lab, who was coincidentally named Astro, but was a boy dog. They were trail running in MA in the summer heat, and his Astro collapsed. Fortunately this guy knew what to do, and there was some dude watering his plants nearby. My colleague ran up, carrying the overheated dog, said "I'm sorry but I need to use your hose to save my dog's life". Then he took the hose and gave Astro a cold water enema. Dog was happy in a few minutes, but crapped in the car on the way home.