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  • Props to the Adirondacks

    Just thought I'd share this with you all, cheers!

    October 2016 I spent a couple days kayaking in the Adirondacks under amazing Autumn skies. While on 7th lake I discovered Payne’s Air Service and was immediately intrigued. I’m not real…
    Visit me at: www.adirondackjoe.wordpress.com
    Whats the matter Col. Sanders, Chicken!

  • #2
    Cool video and neat perspective of the float planes.

    I always like watching them take off and land.

    We had a great time last June watching the action at the Speculator pilots weekend. Fun stuff.

    Tick Magnet

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    • #3
      Back in the '80's, we took a flight from Bird's (I think) and it was an impressive perspective.
      As we taxied along the water, I noticed that it was impossible to see the water directly ahead. When I asked the pilot (who later explained that he was 72 years old!!) what happens if there is a boat in the way, he said casually "oh, they usually move out of the way". Usually!! Usually??

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      • #4
        Float Planes

        Thank you for the compliments.. I found the float planes fascinating and I hope to take a ride over Columbus Day weekend if I can get there.

        Just another neat aspect of the Adirondacks that you don't see everyday!

        Joe
        Visit me at: www.adirondackjoe.wordpress.com
        Whats the matter Col. Sanders, Chicken!

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        • #5
          Tommy Helms in Long Lake is one of the most interesting guys you'll ever talk to. I've flown with him a few times over the years and several friends have used his services for hunting and fishing trips. Years ago he actually forgot to pick up a friend of mine at Lows Lake. Very funny story and not a knock on him. Floatplanes are interesting on take-off and landing as they just feel different because of the water resistance.

          I have two cousins really into flying and one them is partners in an amphibious plane at the Warren County Airport. He keeps telling me he'll take me up some time, we just haven't gotten together. I've got some photos of them testing it out on Glen Lake after they first got it a few years ago.
          Life's short, hunt hard!

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          • #6
            I remember Payne flipped one of his planes landing not too long ago. If you go, fly with Eric, he's awesome. Ex-military pilot.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by stripperguy View Post
              As we taxied along the water, I noticed that it was impossible to see the water directly ahead. When I asked the pilot (who later explained that he was 72 years old!!) what happens if there is a boat in the way, he said casually "oh, they usually move out of the way". Usually!! Usually??
              Yeah....been there on the receiving end. When you are in a canoe holding a line to get up or down a lake and one of these guys decides he's going your only recourse is to pucker and paddle and hope for the best.
              A one gun solute does not begin to do justice. You have to let go of the paddle for the two gun.....

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              • #8
                All this talk of float planes made me look through my archives...from Sept 1987
                I apologize in advance, my old Pentax MX had just gone swimming and was really acting up!

                My favorite daughter and future anonymous nephew



                Aforementioned Bird pilot, his plane and the kids, oh, and a slightly younger MDB!

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                • #9
                  Flying High

                  Great stuff guys, thank you for sharing. I hope to some day get to Long Lake and photograph the float planes as well.

                  Joe
                  Visit me at: www.adirondackjoe.wordpress.com
                  Whats the matter Col. Sanders, Chicken!

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Buckladd View Post
                    Tommy Helms in Long Lake is one of the most interesting guys you'll ever talk to. I've flown with him a few times over the years and several friends have used his services for hunting and fishing trips. Years ago he actually forgot to pick up a friend of mine at Lows Lake. Very funny story and not a knock on him. Floatplanes are interesting on take-off and landing as they just feel different because of the water resistance.

                    I have two cousins really into flying and one them is partners in an amphibious plane at the Warren County Airport. He keeps telling me he'll take me up some time, we just haven't gotten together. I've got some photos of them testing it out on Glen Lake after they first got it a few years ago.
                    It was a real blow to Helms and his associates when DEC virtually eliminated float planes in Wilderness areas.
                    Personally, I never objected to them, even after sweating my butt off to get to a remote lake.
                    The planes were in and out in minutes, the operators insured that no garbage was left behind. Something I can't say about of many "Wilderness" hikers.
                    Jim

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Hard Scrabble View Post
                      It was a real blow to Helms and his associates when DEC virtually eliminated float planes in Wilderness areas.
                      Personally, I never objected to them, even after sweating my butt off to get to a remote lake.
                      The planes were in and out in minutes, the operators insured that no garbage was left behind. Something I can't say about of many "Wilderness" hikers.
                      Jim
                      Well here's my story that I have told here before about why I dislike float planes.

                      I had paddled my way into Lows Lake one morning, Memorial Day weekend, all the way to Grass Pond, and stashed my canoe at an obscure location in the woods to begin a couple days of bushwhacking here and there. So I'm standing in the open on the shore edge of the elevated campsite on the north end at site #32, watching a loon swim along the shore. Suddenly a float plane buzzes directly overhead, coming from the north, turns around and lands coming toward me. It had to have seen me standing there at the campsite. The plane (plainly marked but not owned by Helms nor Bird) pulls up to a small landing maybe 50 yards away and unloads two guys and gear. They start hauling stuff up toward me.

                      What really burned me at that point is they had no idea if the site was already occupied or not, but they did see me there. As the plane started up to taxi out, the loon started loudly calling out as it literally chased the taxiing plane in a furious state. I can only imagine there was a nest in the grass nearby. I left without saying a word to go on my first bushwhack.

                      I came back a couple of hours later to a ramshackle tent and tarp set up with a raging fire going and a bottle of Wild turkey, 3/4 gone, sitting on a stump. alarmed by the fire, I called out to see if anyone was nearby. Just as I was getting a container to put out the fire, I heard a noise coming from inside the tent. I peered under the tarp to see 2 cots inside. On one cot was a snoring sleeper, against the other was a rifle (probably a .22) leaning against the side. He kept on snoring, dead to the world and my calling out.

                      From down at the landing site, the other guy came rushing up excitingly exclaiming " I got another one" as he carried up a stringer of bass, all apparently still alive. It being Memorial Day, bass season was not yet open. My normal hiking clothes don't appear to be very much different from a ranger's outfit. When I confronted the guy about the out of season fish, he said, "yeah, but there are a lot of them there". I convinced him to throw them all back and maybe to tone down the fire. My normal hiking clothing might slightly resemble a ranger's outfit to the uneducated, which doesn't bother me a bit.

                      With that I left on another bushwhack, only to return a couple of hours later to see the same guy cleaning fish in a pail. "Bullheads, I got bullheads". Indeed they were this time. My canoe was about a quarter mile away, where I set my hammock up on sloping ground about 200 feet from the shore. Around dinner time the shooting began. I honestly don't know how that plane could fly if it carried in that much lead. I feared for the poor loon at the site. At dusk I saw a ranger motorboat head in toward them, and leave a few minutes later.

                      I left the next morning and stopped on the way out to report to the ranger what I had seen. The ranger said that nothing noteworthy was found at the site visited the evening before, but did declare that floatplane operator ...... and the clients he drops, usually ignorant of regulations and camping ethics, typically were a "pain", which was the reason for last evening's visit by boat.

                      Float plane operators tend to think that they have certain campsites reserved just for them where ever they go. I later discovered there was a rowboat stashed there near the landing site, but I did not witness it being used. if I had already established my camp at site #32 before the plane arrived, what would have happened then? Was I expected to move on so they could have it?

                      Float planes are all gone now from Lows, I say good riddance if this is the type of clients they bring.
                      "Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman

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                      • #12
                        Sounds like your "wilderness experience" was ruined by a couple of drunken yahoos, not a float plane pilot. To me, you make it sound like float plane operators and their clients are a menace to the Adirondacks. Lol

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by St.Regis View Post
                          Sounds like your "wilderness experience" was ruined by a couple of drunken yahoos, not a float plane pilot. To me, you make it sound like float plane operators and their clients are a menace to the Adirondacks. Lol
                          Perhaps a little "yahoo screening" and/or simple instruction to the clients on how to behave from the pilot would eliminate much of the hard feelings to the industry that they otherwise create by taking up anyone who is willing to pay a few bucks for a yahoo joy ride.
                          "Now I see the secret of making the best person, it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth." -Walt Whitman

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Wldrns View Post
                            Perhaps a little "yahoo screening" and/or simple instruction to the clients on how to behave from the pilot would eliminate much of the hard feelings to the industry that they otherwise create by taking up anyone who is willing to pay a few bucks for a yahoo joy ride.
                            I'm sure that Helms and other responsible float plane operators instructed their clients on proper behavior.
                            One incident should not condemn the industry.
                            I've seen the same behavior of hikers in "wilderness" areas.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by mgc View Post
                              Yeah....been there on the receiving end. When you are in a canoe holding a line to get up or down a lake and one of these guys decides he's going your only recourse is to pucker and paddle and hope for the best.
                              A one gun solute does not begin to do justice. You have to let go of the paddle for the two gun.....
                              Seriously, the float plane leaves no more of a wake than a small boat.
                              Jim

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