Fairbanks AK to Unalakleet AK

[Hillberg]

Fairbanks AK to Unalakleet AK, Would of gone all the way to Nome But Bob ran outa gas money. Waaaaa. He still owes me $8,000.

[9121u]

HI Don do you still have your brantly and if you do are you still flying it...thanks tom

[Hillberg]

Bobs B2B was left at Unalakleet & the B-2 I had was taken by my evil twin, It needs a complete overhaul as it was caught in the Corona floods under 15 ft of water, After we salvaged it we filled everything with oil,Gear box,engine,t/r drive, On teardown everything was nice & clean , the instraments? Junk. Airframe Good, No corrosion at all. It had more problems before the bath, figure instraments electrical will be the main issues,bearings are no problem we have thousands, but it had a seazed upper txsn bearing (before the bath)
think it had 1700 hrs tt, It just had a new sprage installed just a year before the flood,

[9121u]

THANKS ..and thanks for sharing your story...my first brantly was a b2 good little helicopter but the carb engine lacks a little power compared to the fuel injected engine..never understood why lycoming advertised both engines to have 180 hp maybe its just the torque....

[seneca2e]

Hillberg tell us more about the B2B trip to Unalakleet. Was that ship sold or just abandoned up there? Was it just a recreational trip you were pushing to the limits in that area and you had some kind of trouble or ?????????? Did you own that B2B?

On the other machine the B2- I clicked on an old link Ron put up and got some history on it. So you apparently got it form the airport management after if was abandoned after the flood and several years had passed? Interesting sagas both!

[Hillberg]

I was hired to heard & count raindeer. But Nome was just the home base, At Fairbanks Bobs Brantly & Eurcoupe needed work, I fixed them up & after a few days ,My wife & I flew the Brantly From Fairbanks ,past Nenana,Manly hot springs,Ruby,Galina,Nulato,Kaltag ending at Unalakleet 525 miles away, Bob ran out of $$$ and asked if I had a credit card, So with no Money to continue I went home, On the way at Nalato,Kaltag the compass started spinning as fast as the rotors the fluid leaked out making it useless .58 miles over the same looking ground is not an ideal position, I removed the compass & had my wife hold it ,Dead reconed it worked as we flew directly at Unalakleet dead on, The skeeders were at there worst in the morning & evening,Gas cans leaked,Radio was junk 50% of the time & the "GPS" was just bagage, The only real hick up was the slug of water that messed with the engine ,A nice auto to a sand bar, After a check & run it was good to go, What you do when your young & stupid. Still want my $8,000 or Bobs Brantly.

[seneca2e]

Heck of a trip! Did you fly the Brantly back to the lower 48 and spend the 8K to get it back or was that wages and gas up in Alaska that you lost and you left it at Fairbanks or Unalakleet? Did the engine quit dead or hiccup and you reacted from it(what else could a person do-he who hesitates is lost!)? Very, very interesting saga! I tried to Google map the trip and even now in 2013 it says it cannot calculate the trip lol. Must not be many more roads now than then!

I only have made it to Alaska once when I bought two old Beech QueenAirs-or so I thought. Got one of them running and returned home only to find them for sale by Baron Thomas in Aerotrader. Dispite my 5k deposit he had somehow wrestled them away from the broker named Dari I believe. Eventually I gave up on them and got my deposit back. Though at the time I was mad it was probably the luckiest I've ever been NOT having to have to fly those things back(in very poor condition). Sometimes you win when you lose-you just don't know it at the time!

[Hillberg]

Unalakleet is where Bobs Brantly was parked. the $8,000 was for work done , Fixing & the flying- He violated the contract. Alaskas roads are in the sky. The engine lost power but kept running (surging) Bobs B2B was injected & the fuel servo went crazy, Figured a slug of water worked its way through, PITA. The Brantly is ugly but sitting in the seat it flys like a baby Hughes 500

[Hillberg]

My other toys(maintenance/flying for the bunch at Corona)- flew all shown but the H-21

[seneca2e]

NIce Don! So you maintain all those and get to fly em too? If you do most of the maintenance on them don't know when you'd ever have time to fly them lol! What is the little helicopter in number one position?

[Hillberg]

First one is the Rotormouse, I built it in 1993, Turbine powered single place, See it on youtube, Rotormouse.mov, That's 16+ odd years of Corona, Hiser & Heli Flite & a bunch of others mixed in. Where does all that time go?

[seneca2e]

You designed and built it pretty impressive! Especially since that was well before the Helicycle turbine single seater of BJ Schramm. What engine did you use in it? Speaking of the Helicycle did you see where that guy put 1500 hours of time on his and landed a gulf offshore job!! That does make the Helicycle look stoutly built.

[Hillberg]

The Rotormouse was powered by an AiResearch 36-55-c Apache APU, The rest were powered with a Solar T-62 T32, The same engine used in the Jet Exec. (The Jet Exec was designed by me) I also made a manual override for the Jet Exec that lets the pilot control the power even after all electrical is lost. BJ saw the mouse at Oshkosh 1995, His Helicycle was piston powered at that time. Doug made a T-62 powered helicycle,In 1998 had a guy from ERA (Jack P?) who put a T62A2 in a CH 7, Told him how to change direction of rotation using Quick change gears, All information is on the web, Aviastar & Hellis.com, & you tube, Oshkosh 1995 & Rotormouse.mov.

Alaska was a PITA not that the money ran short but the days with no nights I couldn't sleep worth a damn.