Headwaters of the Missouri River

 Jul 25, 2012

Flying from Three Forks, Montana.

Three Forks, Montana, is the very beginning of the Missouri River, which flows into the mighty Mississippi and then to the sea.

So the motto here could be, "...Please flush, New Orleans needs the water...."

I'd like to fly that whole river some day....  I realize there are dozens of dams across it now, so it's not really a river any longer, but still a mighty feature of the country.

Early morning flight in perfect weather, with Lee (Trike) and Gary (Challenger) to Townsend airfield, and rode the airfield courtesy car into town for an excellent breakfast.  We then followed the Missouri to it's beginnings.

This is where the the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin rivers all join to become the Missouri. 

 They join up here and go out through that gap in the distance, 

and that's the start of the Missouri.

The Lewis and Clarke expedition passed through here and camped for awhile before venturing up into the difficult mountain passes.
Three Forks is one of my favorite towns.  A very quiet farming town,  but with facilities to cater for that local population.  Sure is good to get away from cities and freeways.  This is just next to the foothills of the Rockies, close enough to the mountains for good adventures, but not too close.  I need a wide horizon, and don't like being surrounded by mountains and pine tress everywhere.  It's nice to have a mountain range for a feature on the distant horizon, but I don't like being hemmed in by them...

.........................................................................

The 'Buffalo Jump' near the Madison River.
Hundreds of buffalo were chased over this cliff each year, and butchered at the bottom, 
and the meat dried and stored away to feed the tribes for the winter.

Runners chased the animals from the plain and funnelled them out onto this trap.

Now the plain is all wheat fields.....

....................................................................................

Wild looking storms gather over the nearby mountains,

 but then mostly go right over Three Forks and dump elsewhere.

Three Forks is one of my favorite towns.  A very quiet farming town,  but with facilities to cater for that local population.  Sure is good to get away from cities and freeways.  This is just next to the foothills of the Rockies, close enough to the mountains for good adventures, but not too close.  I need a wide horizon, and don't like being surrounded by mountains and pine tress everywhere.  It's nice to have a mountain range for a feature on the distant horizon, but I don't like being hemmed in by them...

.........................................

New Landing Gear

Ever since getting this aircraft, I'd had 'adventures' each time on landing.  It would dart sideways just when I thought it was steady, and sometimes needed right rudder, and sometimes left, not matching cross-wind conditions, very confusing and embarrassing when it darted off a runway a couple of times......  Even after Stacy straightened the landing gear leg, it was still unpredictable....   When we stripped off the black paint before straightening that leg, we found deep scars from having been clamped in a big vise....  Showing a history of some brutal straightening attempt sometime in the past....  I don't like to see sharp scars like those on a part that is continually being flexed, so ordered new main gear legs from Kolb and picked them up at West Yellowstone.  At Three Forks I met Gary (Challenger flyer) who invited me to fit those new legs in his hangar.  We slung the FireFly from the rafters and replaced those old legs.  On sitting it on it's wheels again, we noticed that the wheels ended up with a very positive camber (top of wheel outside the bottom).  Looked good, and maybe was meant to be this way to allow for flexing of the legs under load.  But then we got looking at the brakes.  They were mounted so that the caliper was under the axle, putting the hydraulic hose very exposed to shrubbery that might be on the ground, and the hose was drum tight that way.  So we turned the brake assembly and axle 180 degrees so that the caliber was now on top.  This made a lot more sense, putting the hose in a protected position and giving suitable slack so it wasn't in tension.  But now the wheels showed considerable negative camber!  So the stub axles themselves were bent!  And bent before I started flying it, because they were bend down rather than up.  So it would appear that someone had a heavy enough landing to bend them and the legs, then turned over the axles to compensate for the bent legs.  Took those axles and had them straightened, and finally with everything lined up, the strange gyrations on went away.  Now I understood - with those bent axles, the alignment changed from when the tail was on the ground to when the tail raised.  This explained why it was so unpredictable.....  And when landing, why it suddenly wanted to dart left when the tail came down....  I would have thought I could have seen that mis-alignment by eye, but didn't.

A Three Forks I also replaced the tail wheel with a much better one.  The original was so narrow and hard that we called it a 'pizza cutter'....  It would dig in and plow through soft dirt, and skip around on hard asphalt,  giving unpredictable ground handling.  The new tail wheel was costly, and overkill in structure for this light aircraft, but it greatly improved ground handling.  Now I could handle any cross-wind with ease, and landings became predictable and comfortable.

So it finally became a nice aircraft to land, after half the trip was over.......

.



Click on 'Older Posts' to continue.