Search:

Flying in Fairbanks

We flew along the Tanana River to the east to Harding Lake and back, since Fairbanks Approach would be able to track us on radar and provide flight following for the entire trip. They lose coverage pretty quickly to the west, there was rain to the south, and not that much to see to the north, given that the flight would be around an hour total.

I've got over 900 hours flying and various ratings, so I'm pretty comfortable flying a Skyhawk. My goal was to see some cool things and take some pictures. Stephanie was in the back seat and took pictures too. I've included her pictures here as well. Technically speaking, her borrowed camera was newer than my borrowed camera, yet it appears that her pictures are smaller than mine. I have no idea, and haven't bothered making all the thumbnails the same size. Just click on them and they'll fill the screen.

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). Almost 55 pictures included.

Fairbanks Area

bigger huge

Here is a picture of the plane on the ramp. The one we took was N354FW. It was a short distance to taxi to the runway, 20L.

bigger huge

bigger huge

A view from behind, after takeoff (thanks to Stephanie). 4 runways are visible. 20L (what we used), 20R (on the left side of the picture), 20W (the water channel between the two runways) and 20, the gravel runway that's the black strip on the far end of our runway.

And a view of the airport as we turned onto downwind. Technically speaking, I think these two pictures were actually taken on our return after the touch and go, but for storytelling purposes, they work better here.

bigger huge

bigger huge

A view of the front from the backseat, and a picture of me at the controls. My arm is extended because I'm holding the camera, not desperatly trying to maneuver the plane and keep the wings on.

Tanana River

bigger huge

bigger huge

A picture of the Tanana River. The second one is of a windy river near the Tanana. Not sure which it is, but it's too small and windy to be the Tanana.

bigger huge

bigger huge

More Tanana River pcitures.

bigger huge

bigger huge

Another shot of the Tanana River and a picture of the tundra. I asked the flight instructor about landing options, in case we had to make an emergency landing. He said the mud flats along the river bank would be the first choice. A distant second choice would be a tundra area that was clear of trees. The landing gear would, most likely, sink into the soft ground, and then the plane would flip over on its nose. Fortunately, things ran smoothly so it wasn't an issue.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

A few pictures of the Tanana River to the north of us as we fly east, with the left wing and pitot tube visible. The pitot tube is what measures the plane's airspeed.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

The first picture was a view out the window from the backseat. We passed through rain (but not rain clouds) a few times, briefly. This is VFR in Alaska. (Actually, it never was below VFR minimums, and looked worse from the back seat.) There's some rain on the window visible on the second picture, and water on the trailing edge of the left strut.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

But the really cool part about rain being in the area was that we saw some rainbows! The first picture is a rainbow to the north of us. The second and third are looking down at the Tanana River again, with the muddy, silty mix of water very visible.

Harding Lake

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

A few pictures of Harding lake.

bigger huge

bigger huge

The left and right side of Harding Lake. People have vacation houses and the like by the water.

Heading Back

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

Rainbows, rainbows, and more rainbows! The second and third pictures are of the left and right half of a 180 degree rainbow.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

A few more pictures of the return trip. The second is of the valley area looking towards some of the mountais to the south and the third is of the river.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

River, river, and more river. Kind of muddy there. I think I took those pictures while I was flying and just pointed the camera to the right side of the plane and took the picture without looking through the viewfinder. So the first picture is at a bit of an odd angle. I don't think we're banking weirdly, I think it's mostly me holding the camera at an odd angle.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

More river pictures! Then two shots looking to the south with rain curtains visible. Because of the rain, there's no way we have visibility 100 miles to the south to Denali park. Oh well.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

A few more shots looking to the south at some light rain, as we were going west.

bigger huge

bigger huge

I think this is just east of Fairbanks, so probably North Pole, as opposed to Eilson Air Force Base.

bigger huge

At some point, Fairbanks Approach told us that there was traffic nearby. We were probably 1500 to 2000 feet above ground level, they were probably closer to 700-1000 feet, so a good 1000 feet below us. We saw them. They passed under us and Stephanie got a nice shot of them.

Fairbanks Airport

To make things a bit more interesting, a plane that landed before us had a "stuck mic" which meant his mic was stuck in the transmit mode, which prevents anyone else from using the frequency. We did not have a landing clearance at that point. I was watching the other traffic in the area to make sure we were safe and the plane in front of us was clear. About half a minute before we landed, the frequency cleared (maybe he let go of the mic, changes frequencies, turned it off, wahtever), we asked the tower to confirm we were cleared to land, and proceeded. No problems. Technically speaking, we could have tried the ground frequency or something like that, but I was flying the plane and watching for traffic. I figured in the worst case, we'd have to fill out a NASA ASRS form, but I didn't want to get distracted from landing safely.

bigger huge

bigger huge

The first picture is of the airport while a rain sheet was between it and us. I headed towards that area and asked the flight instructor to confirm that that was the airport. The second picture is of the airport once we passed the rain—it cleared right up and visibility was fine.

bigger huge

bigger huge

bigger huge

Once again, the nice thing about flying through rain and sun is the rainbows. Beautiful rainbows over Fairbanks. I didn't get any pictures of planes on final approach flying through the rainbow (we were on the downwind leg at that point), but it was quite pretty.

bigger huge

bigger huge

The Fairbanks airport is a seaplane base. Stephanie got a couple of pictures of the pond/lake/whatever with some seaplanes in it as we were coming in to the gravel strip.

bigger huge

bigger huge

On the go, we passed the general aviation strip and the control tower. Stephanie got a couple of nice shots there.

bigger huge

And finally, a picture of the flight instructor and me once we had the plane back on the ramp and tied down.

feed