Repairing a grounded plane away from “home”

How many men does it take to turn a wrench?

Sunday was spent at the landing strip at Cube Cove on Admiralty Island.  It is an  abandoned strip that was built when there was a logging camp at the spot – not even on the map today.   However, it is a common “off pavement” place for the few private pilots who still like to do this kind of thing.  What happened was that Donovan totally mangled the prop on his Stensen during a landing the previous Sunday.  This rarely happens, but on that specific date, there were two airplanes at the strip.  The owner of the undamaged plane was located and although they were strangers, Chris let Donovan take his plane (same type) back to Juneau – and he stayed in a makeshift shelter.  Sunday was the day to go back to the scene of the accident with a borrowed prop and put it on the down plane. Two planes flew over, including us.  Sounds simple, but it really is not an easy or fast procedure and is suppose to be done by an AMP.  But you got to do what you got to do to take care of your aircraft up here and just about every pilot I know is also their own personal mechanic, even if not licensed to do so.  After several hours, the prop was successfully installed and tested and Donovan was one happy person to get his fabric airplane out of bear territory – they have a liking to planes it seems, snooping and tearing.

Run-up test prior to takeoff

Damaged plane's owner

Takeoff on the gravel strip

Along with tools, an ever present bear deterent