HA! - I flew out of Laslui Lake in the otter with Emil, stopping at Klyaz to pick up the frame of Ray's PA-12. It had blown up and burned while he was filling a wing (IIRC) tank from a step-ladder using a chamois lined bucket pouring from another bucket to transfer the av-gas. It was so hot and dry - nasty static, I assume - BLOOM! - blowing him off the ladder and into the lake, luckily not burned or not burned badly.

I picked up the frame as it was sitting on the bottom right beside the dock and held it against the left float of the otter while Amile tied it on. The air frame didn't weigh more than 100pounds, it felt like - quite light- amazingly so - I was young and strong.

Too bad that frame wouldn't fit inside. With so much induced drag, we couldn't get more than 85 knots out of the Otter, a long flight not planned for and our air speed was not a lot over stall speed for the big 650HP radial Otter.

We almost ran out of fuel ourselves before getting back to Smithers Air Service at McClure Lake, Telkwa. Emil was tapping the fuel gauges when we were still a quite few miles from the lake - looking rather concerned over the hood, no place to set down if the engine stopped, nothing but tree tops. He kept switching the fuel tanks, back and forth, milking every ounce of fuel out of the lines. Good thing we had some height.

Ahhhhh, the memories - seems a different life time ago, yet it was only, what, 36 or 37 years back? HA!

Thanks for that original post, Art. I hope I didn't hijack this threat - too badly? It is, after all, about Spatsizi.