Added: 2 years ago
From: mysticpass
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  • That's insane!!!!! Do you ever go flying for the fun of it? Cuz I am 12 and fly rc planes and want to be a bush pilot. How old do you have to be to start flying lessons?

  • @hamsterwing Flying "just for fun" is the best! I love flying on skis in Alaska because in the winter you can land so many places. You are getting a great start if you are flying RC because those airplanes fly exactly the same as the big ones. You have to be 16 to get a student pilot's license but you can do lots of practicing before that with an instructor or pilot friend. You can also start studying for the written examination whenever you want. Safe flying!

  • Wow, that's a great video. (and story) Well done.

  • @legendofwayne Thanks.

  • It sounded like you were keeping right on the edge of the stall envelope. That was some good stick and rudder flying.

  • @kellingc Right on. With the Horton STOL kit, this airplane was really gentle and stable at 60 mph indicated. Plus the "barn door" manual flaps let me come in high and then come down fast when we had the gravel bar made.

  • Nice calm ending. Did you ever fix the plane and get it out of that river bed?

  • @saxmanchiro A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar. Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local trees, he swapped out engines right there on the gravel bar. Only took him four hours! We flew my airplane to the A & P's hangar where he put together a "new" engine for me. I sold the airplane in 1992. It's still in Alaska.

  • @mysticpass Wow, that's quite the mechanic. I bet the bugs were real pesky.

  • @saxmanchiro :) sounds like you've been there.

  • @mysticpass I bet of the 4 hrs you guys worked on that engine swap, you swatted flies for 2 of them. Have never been in Alaska but have been in northern Ontario during the spring. Black flies galore. Even had one manage to get up my ear canal. EENT had to go in and get him out. All the best to you and yours.

  • Good job! You are an excellent pilot.

  • @mmascitti "Excellent" might be stretching it, but thanks! 

  • good desicion on a good time from great Pilot

  • @dlo3y222 Thanks. 

  • Nice work. I've got a little over 1000 hours in single engine planes, fortunately I've yet to have to make a dead-stick landing.

  • @74HC138 Hope you never do. Safe flying. 

  • thanks for posting!  Glad this all turned out well!

  • really you are good pilot...bravo very emotional...

  • @albertoliru You are very kind. Thank you.

  • Nice job - not an easy thing when the thrust disappears.. Great Piloting..

  • @solaroz so right! Thanks.

  • I found this fasinating, nicely done :)

  • @ksandom40 Thanks.

  • Wow, Im glad you were ok. i'd be really scared! Safe Flying!

    SageHillsPilot

  • @Hamradioismyhobby In the middle of crisis you just follow your training. I think I was more anxious watching the video afterward than "doing it."

  • What RA were you at when you lost power?

  • @cameronwick I'm sorry, what does RA stand for?

  • @mysticpass Sorry, Radar Altitude...but then again I realize that 170B probably does not have a radar altimeter. I'm sure you could guestimate? just how high off the actual ground were you? that would be the first thing I would worry about.

  • @cameronwick Right, no radar altimeter -- not even a Mode C xponder. The floor of Mystic Pass, to the right beyond the big waterfall, is 1900 MSL. I didn't look at the altimeter when the engine failed but I'm guessing I was at 3000 MSL or so, perhaps 2000' AGL. Over the waterfall, I wasn't high enough to enter the pass safely. It was when I added throttle to climb that the engine failed. The video shows an altimeter reading of 1550 feet in the "S" turn prior to touchdown.

  • At first I was like "No landing? Grrrr..." but then I was like "Yeah, I'd have ducked down too!" & stuff.

  • @localcrew :)

  • Congratullations! You did your job very well!

    You make me feel 'will to live' if you know what i mean!

    God bless you!

  • @herruchoa I'm very thankful to God I can hold my daughter's children (my grandchildren)! 

  • hua

  • @dustmundo :)

  • wow looks like you did a great job getting it down safely Ive never had an engine failure if it ever happens I hope I do as well as you did thankfully for you and your family it went this way !

  • @sprcub Thanks. Safe flying.

  • I've suffered through a lot of suck airplane videos. How did it take me years to find this one? Great video! Great aviating! And great Dad! Like everyone else, thanks for sharing!

  • @gjferg Thank you.

  • since 1030 was actually light out, how long were you all there on the ground? very glad to see all went well

  • @d73Hify Camera said 10:30. It was actually 11:30 local (camera was on Pacific time not Alaska time). I can't remember the exact time we went down but it was early to midafternoon. I know we were well overdue on our flight plan at 4pm when FAA initiated the search.

  • Wow awesome story and outcome! Is there a reason why you decided not to show the landing or was that the point where u turned the camera off? Glad u guys made it safe!

  • @Captianfoodstamp Sorry we missed the landing...on the video you can (barely) hear me yell to my front seat passenger "it's gonna be rough" just before he shut the camera off to hang on. I saw a ditch coming up too fast and was afraid we would nose over. Hard to blame him for doing the right thing! The landing was hard because I pulled up to make it stall before we got to the ravine. I've made plenty of worse landings though -- in good conditions!

  • Amazing. Thanks for sharing. :)

  • Very cool video, and glad the outcome was a success! Cool as a cucumber,

  • @Aviyaytor Thanks. 

  • Wow, crazy video! Watching the terrain prior to and during the engine failure gave me some crazy anxiety bringing me back to all those "what-ifs" that went through my mind when I flew in my rented Cessna over rough terrain and oceans in the south pacific ... great landing!

  • @xseig3x Yes, I know that feeling! If the engine failure had occurred even 2 or 3 minutes later, we would have been in a narrow rock gorge (east entrance to Mystic Pass) with absolutely no place to put down. None of us would have survived.

  • Wow

  • fine job

  • @Earssss Thanks! Safe flying.

  • Nice job. How did you get the plane out of there??

  • @ChgoSTrider A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar. Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local trees, he swapped out engines right there on the gravel bar. Only took him four hours! We flew my airplane to the A & P's hangar where he put together a "new" engine for me. I sold the airplane in 1992. It's still in Alaska.

  • A really good illustration of the importance of keeping suitable terrain available at all times in a single engine airplane. No night. No IMC. Well done, Sir.

  • @LJDRVR Thanks. You're right on -- important to have enough airspace under you to give yourself options. 

  • Nice flying!

  • @TheRealHawkeye Thanks.

  • Nice work, sir! Fellow taildragger driver here. A+ for having daughters who can handle themselves! They're about my age now, are they available? ;)

  • @Floats18 Thanks for the great laugh! Both girls are happily married and have several children. I can't help but think "what if" when I hold my grandkids. Good luck on your wife hunt! Safe flying my friend.

  • great job. It would be most interesting to read more about how you handled the situation - what went thru your mind when the engine quit, how you thought thru the situation, planned the landing, etc. Would make a great article for student pilots and for those of us who have never had to do it for real.

  • @dkeberhard Good point. I enjoy writing..will consider that. In short, my first thought was oh my, it's happening to me. I had practiced engine failures and simulated emergency landings so many times I just reacted when it happened. I smelled smoke at the same time as the engine failed so I flipped off all electrical and shut off fuel at the firewall. From there it was just a matter of establishing and maintaining a good glide ratio while I looked for a place to put down. (continued)

  • @dkeberhard (Sorry, this will be out of order.) The first spot I selected was directly below us. I didn't know if we would survive because it was so small and rough, but if we caught fire that's where I was going. When we didn't catch fire, I selected a second spot about half a mile away which would have wrecked the airplane but we probably would have survived. When I got there I still had good altitude so I went for the nice smooth beach about a half mile farther south where we actually landed.

  • probably didnt seem like it at the time but its little things like this that create little memorable adventures that last a lifetime.

  • @glennjridge Right on!

  • SOme people really do panick in these sort of situations and lose it mentally from fear

  • Good pilot : ) Salute.

  • @yohan01 Thanks!

  • Better call Jim Tweto!! Great airmanship!!!

  • @chubsmagoo :) Thanks.

  • ufff, lucky end:-)

  • wooow mate what an experience. glad you guys were ok. Wow man.

  • @Skyrodude Thanks. May you fly safe.

  • Good job bleeding off altitude and airspeed to land on that small clearing! I hope everyone was OK. But one question is still bugging me: What happened to your Cessna 170?

  • @MrJp990 A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar. Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local trees, he swapped out engines right there on the gravel bar. Only took him four hours! We flew my airplane to the A & P's hangar where he put together a "new" engine for me. I sold the airplane in 1992. It's still in Alaska.

  • @mysticpass Well all I can say is that was some damn good craftsmanship... Also, some of the best flying I had ever witnessed.

  • @MrJp990 Thanks. Very kind of you.

  • @mysticpass Wait, so your entire airplane is just siting in the middle of a sand bar in the middle of alaska?

  • @SecondCocacola A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. (Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar.) Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local trees, he swapped out engines right there on the gravel bar. Only took him four hours! We flew my airplane to the A & P's hangar where he put together a "new" engine for me.

  • @capricornBMX thanks!

  • @mysticpass

    Great Video, Glad to see you made it back!

  • We need to increase funding to the Civil Air Patrol. We have almost no funding, here in Mass anyway. The Civil Air Patrol are obviously very helpful in this stuff! A downed plane not too long ago got like 5 squadrens scrabled to Westover AFB to get the CAP planes in the air. Took about 5 hours but we found the guy.

  • @masonjenkins4 CAP is of critical importance to general aviation. We need to make sure public officials get this. Thank you for sacrificing and serving despite the shortage of funds. Hats off to you and all CAP volunteers.

  • Superb!

  • @ChrizRockster Thanks!

  • second time I've watched this. Such a nice job bleeding off altitude and setting up the approach. Very calm in the cockpit. There is simply nothing that could have been performed better here. Just a great pilot with a great story!

  • @PirateSygnal Thanks! All the way down I could hear my instructor's voice, "Airspeed and altitude, watch your airspeed and altitude."

  • Nicely done. Glad you guys got a great life story and video out of it.

  • @dcdean01 thank you. 

  • Hi mysticpass,

    How is the plane doing now?

    Did you fix it out in the field and takeoff there?

  • @jdbar01 A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed

    engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. (Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar.) Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local trees, he swapped out engines right there on the gravel bar. Only took him four hours! We flew my airplane to the A & P's hangar where he put together a "new" engine for me.

  • @jdbar01 I sold the airplane in 1992. The FAA registry shows it is still in Alaska, on the

    Kuskokwim River now.

  • Excellent job. Your (and everyones) calmness made this look like a training mission you've been run through a hundred times.

  • @kkrankie thanks, guess we faked it well!

  • Precious cargo.......

  • @jaygdav My wife says she had long since dealt with the idea that flying could get me someday, but not our daughter! Precious cargo is right.

  • Excellent job, stayed calm, made the right moves and got everyone out of there safely!

  • @artdisco Thanks.

  • Well done, good call on the S turns to not overshoot the landing area!

  • @TTMR1986 thanks. We also had a 15 knot headwund on final that let us land slow.

  • Good job. No panic. Excellent work!! Great pick on the landing area. What fabulous countryside.

  • @SoapyHB Thanks. That is remarkable country. 

  • never stop filming...especially when its rough...

  • @coffeetablesex Good luck on that one :)

  • I am a student pilot, and I have done some simulating engine failure training. But we never really cut off the engine during the training, this video give me great image of what a real engine failure will be like....Thanks for sharing, this video may safe my life someday..^^

  • @yourcup0322 so glad you're taking training. Stay with the emergency procedures until it' natural. And may you never have to use it. Safe flying.

  • Great job coming out of that one!

  • @thatcadguy Thanks.

  • Great video, great story, and a great outcome. Thank you for sharing this.

  • @mh53eflyguy Thank you.

  • Great vid and great story...gld everyone made it out alive and in one piece. Well done.

  • @AllanVictoriaA Thanks.

  • Be safe!

  • wonderfull job !!!

  • @youreale Thanks. More than 20 years later both girls in the back seat are happily married and have children of their own. Gets me when I think what could have been, especially if the failure had happened a couple minutes later when we were in the entrance of Mystic Pass (sheer rock walls).

  • @mysticpass I'm glad that everything went fine on this flight. It's really a very inspiring story for pilots all around the world. May God bless you and your family.

  • @youreale TThank you. Merry Christmas!

  • Wow that was amazing! Glad u guys turned out ok!

  • @incheon Thank you. I'm very thankful!

  • One of the BEST videos here......Period

  • @supersabrejet Thanks. Very kind of you. Safe flying.

  • Civil Air Patrol is a great program! I'm in the Rochester, N.Y. Squadron

  • @lilpep116 Thank you for serving with CAP. You guys are the best! 

  • How come it's still noisy despite the engine having quit? I thought it would be silent, no?

  • @bg11215 It surprised me how much wind noise there was when the engine was silent. I guess that old 1952 airframe had some "rough spots."

  • scary !

  • Very nice job handling the emergency. Hats off to ya.

  • @SteveD328 Thanks. As a fairly low time pilot (only 900 hours), I'm quite sure I had Help landing the airplane!

  • how could you omit the best part of the whole video!!!

    however I congratulate you!

  • @Motherfuckersito Sorry we missed the landing...you can barely hear me yell to my front seat passenger "it's gonna be rough" just before he shut the camera off to hang on. I saw a ditch coming up too fast and was afraid we would nose over. Hard to blame him for doing the right thing! The landing was hard because I pulled up to make it stall before we got to the ravine. I've made plenty of worse landings though -- in good conditions!

  • Always nice to see a happy ending.

  • @parkerhale1099 Thanks. I loved that airplane -- fantastic ski airplane in the bush.

  • @parkerhale1099 No kidding! Nice to hear from you. You probably know it's still in Alaska, on the Kuskokwim now. Most gentle airplane I ever had (great one to have an engine failure in).

  • Very Nice, Very Good, Very Job.......

  • @MrPapagaiodepirata Thank you.

  • Very Nice, Very Good, Very Job.......

  • Very Nice, Very Good, Very Job.......

  • You picked a great spot to camp! very cool video.

  • @02svtguy Big grizzly tracks all around the camp area. Fortunately, I always carried a .44 mag in the airplane.

  • What an awesome story! Really nice landing. Very cool that you could swap the engine right there. Cool vid!

  • This is text book brilliance ..top stuff

  • A very nice job on your part. You remain collected, even with your friends and two daughters in the back, something I know few people would be able to do. For a moment there I thought the Civil Air Patrol was going to try and land in the field but none the less they did a fine job.

  • Great! You're lucky guy!

  • Great job! I am interested in how you salvaged the aircraft. Rebuild the engine on site? Fly in a replacement engine and change out? Logistics issue that! 

  • @tolip11 A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar. Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local trees, he swapped out engines right there on the bar. Only took him four hours! We flew my airplane to the A & P's hangar where he put together a "new" engine for me.

  • @mysticpass okay, you guys up there are super survivalists and amazing pilots and engineers! that is super impressive with the engine rebuild/swap out

  • What a great job sir. As pilots we train for that, but it all changes when the prop sits in one spot and all you hear is wind. You performed as calm and cool as anybody could every be and my hats off to you. You remained calm on the outside, but I know your heart was thumping pretty hard on the inside. I have had partial and total engine losses in the past, but the area I live in is not even in the same league as where you were. Congats on a job well done.

  • @TheTodd2u Thanks. You're absolutely right on the thumping heart! When I climbed out my knees were very weak!

  • well done pal!!!!

  • 3:07 =D

  • Wow, great job of landing, and it seems as though the kids were having a good time in spite of the troubles. Alls well that ends well. Could you let us know what you think, or know what went wrong with the engine. thanks.

  • @bparno A ring broke in one cylinder, deeply scoring the cylinder wall and causing oil to "pump out" the exhaust on every stroke. Since the oil was all going out underneath the airplane, I didn't know there was a problem until oil pressure was at zero and the engine was ruined.

  • @bparno The girls had a good time sampling various C rations from the survival gear. Their mothers, on the other hand, weren't having such a good time as they wondered if we were alive.

  • nice video, great pilot!!!! Congratulations

  • Really nice fotage you got there. That is what I was looking for. Cheers mate :)

  • Nice video.

    I got my pilots licence a few of years back, my instructor must have made me do about 10 hours of force landings without power.....I only needed 50 hours total to get my licence and thought it a bit over the top to spend so much time on the one thing. However, I guess your video goes to show that an engine failure can happen at any time without warning. This is the one thing you have to get right the 1st time, there are no 2nd chances to go around and try again.

  • @69aussieguy Hopefully, you'll never have the "it's happening to me" shot of adrenalin, but if you do, you'll thank your instructor for all the practice!

  • You sir, have some balls. Great job with bringing the plane down. Unbelievable.

  • Awsome video..thanku...

  • would of crapped myself

  • Excellent video ......................... :-)

    Great demonstration on a superbly executed emergency landing. You could hardly have been better prepared for a difficult cross country flight over rough terrain .

    Congratulations on a marvellously safe outcome ................ :-)

  • @MrHelidude thanks. Very kind of you.

  • This makes me proud to be in CAP

  • @FlabbyMcLardFat thanks for your service!

  • @FlabbyMcLardFat Great flying and hail the CAP. They paid for my PPL in 1968. Former SAR pilot.

  • looks like you really lucked out with a nice surface to land on!

  • My first flying lesson in a Cessna 150, we had an engine failure at 5,000 feet. I was very happy to have my instructor there so he could glide us in. I still haven't gotten my privates, I should save up and go get it. I like flying. :)

  • Thank you for sharing this. I have been a private pilot for 25 years and have had two engine failures. One in a just purchased home built that had fuel feeding issues I was unaware of.

    This happened in 1991 over a forest with few lakes. Like you, luck was on my side that day as the prop stopped over the only lake in sight and I was able to make an uneventful landing. There is more to this story but this is not the place for it.

    Our 172 with the 0-300 was famous for losing pistons as well.

  • @pahoskins Great story. Wow. The 0-300 was a smooth running engine but it did go through jugs. I could plan on replacing one jug or another every 100 hours.

  • @pahoskins wow glad everything turned out ok, I also have had my ppl since 88 (flight test date 8-18-88) and have always rented, (never owned a plane) from air orlando (orl 7 miles north of orlando int.) so planes were always in good cond. never had an issue with engine, also switched to the plastic license but still have my original paper one...stay safe

  • @abcpilot Thanks. Enjoy the air.

  • Nice job landing that airplane it almost looked routine! I experienced a total engine failure over a mountain in New Hampshire in a C-172 and ended up landing on a golf course so I know the "Pucker Factor" you experienced. Did you get the airplane fixed and fly it back home?

  • @HHacker1959 A friend who is also an excellent bush pilot and an A&P flew in a borrowed engine (in his Cessna 206U), landing next to my airplane. (Before leaving on the chopper I had walked off 900' usable feet of gravel bar.) Using a spruce-legged tripod made from local tree