another mystry airport

[NWONT]

AP, I'm sure you've been here. This sled is sitting on the runway now overgrown with pines.

[Liquid Charlie]

Hookerville??

[NWONT]

nope, but you're in the right area. LC you may have worked off this airport

[Liquid Charlie]

Central Pat cuz I have never been to Weibenville -- lol

[NWONT]

Yup, Central Pat. When I take people there they can't believe DC-3's once flew out of there. I'm guessing that this dozer once pulled that cat train sled.

[Pop n Fresh]

This is just the sort of thing I need $7billion for. Go get that machine running and clear the runway again just for fun one summer. Show the kids the value of doing a little work.

They won't understand for a while but those lessons tend to eventually sink in sort of.

Actually the seat and lights look kind of newer. That unit might just need a battery and some lubrication.

[NWONT]

Yup, wouldn't take much to get'er moving again. Here's the runway drag. A coat of paint is all it needs and she's good-to-go. Also some fool built a house on the end of the runway but give'r a couple extra inches of boost and should be able to clear it.

[Pop n Fresh]

Maybe. I think I'd prefer a D-9 or bigger if we were going to clear the house out of there. That little unit was probably parked by the owner of the house a few years ago.

Cool pictures. Any from above?

[NWONT]

My last winter on the DC-3 was in 1983, cat trains were still active then. That little cat could well have been in service at that time. I meant clearing the roof of the house with the wheels of a DC-3 as you were taking off.

[Antique Pilot]

Jeeze I had forgot all about the Central Pat airstrip. But for some reason I remember the bar in town.

AP

[NWONT]

This one?

[Pop n Fresh]

These are great threads. Thank you guys.

It's amazing how the forest has re-claimed the place. Seems like it should have taken longer. I suppose it is thirty years.

[Antique Pilot]

Here is the Central Patricia Hotel. I remember Loraine the bar maid very well back about 1970. I took this pic on the day of Billy Koval's funeral, May 12, 2012. I talked briefly with Loraine as she was there. She didn't remember me.

AP.

[Liquid Charlie]

The last time I operated off the central pat strip was the year they did the hard surface on the pickle lake strip -- I can still remember the green stains on the props from cutting the tag alders on approach and the little right turn on departure going south to miss the high ground -- that had to be mid 70's

[NWONT]

I bought this Stinson off Joe Leuchaft in 1973. He flew it off the road in front of his house in Central Pat, right beside the river and landed it at the Pickle lake Airport. It was just a sand pit then, nothing was flying off it. Can't remember why he didn't want to use the Central Pat Airport. I wouldn't hand him the cheque until he got it to the airport. Of course no insurance or anything. Joe said if I crashed it I better die in it cause he would find me and kill me if I lived and put a stop on the cheque. Plane had a 190 HP Lycoming on it. Biggest piece of shit engine ever built. It had only one mag because these mags also fit a Case tractor and that's where the other one went. Plane hadn't flown in years. I put a piece of plywood over the mag hole and flew it back to Gimli like that. Engine would barely keep running so followed the road to Sioux lookout, then on along the Transcanada. Big storm over the south end of Lake Winnipeg so had to go straight across. Very nervous crossing for sure. Took me a year to rebuild it and get it airworthy (or close anyway). Eddie Cull went with me for the first flight after the rebuild. June 4-1974

[Pop n Fresh]

Here's a nice site with a history of the town plus Pickle Lake and Pickle Crow complete with a tale of a sucessfull gold bar robbery.

http://www.ontariotowns.net/PickleLake/History.cfm

[beech 18]

May 26, 2014

NWONT - Joe had a number of aircraft over the years.
Do you recall the Seabee he was flying sometime
around 1974?

[NWONT]

Yes I do and have a couple of slides of it too but very difficult to scan. Joe took the landing gear off it so it couldn't be repossessed but they showed up with a crane and picked it up and trucked it away.

[Illya Kuryakin]

The last time I operated off the central pat strip was the year they did the hard surface on the pickle lake strip -- I can still remember the green stains on the props from cutting the tag alders on approach and the little right turn on departure going south to miss the high ground -- that had to be mid 70's

I was running ski Daks out of Wiebenville in '74, and I don't think that strip was open then.
Illya