You maybe noticed, I organized a whole blog category under the same name. Because the Mr. Yakovlev’s name is a very special one. It always meant a lot for the generations of aviators in Russia (or, formerly - in the Soviet Union). They usually learned this name at the very beginning of their way ‘from the ground up’.
Yes, indeed, ‘wingwalking’ is an old stunt that goes back to the ‘era of ‘barnstorming’, - a period of post-WWI time when a ’surplus’ of retired from the war aviators appeared across the country, and being unable to find a more practical use for their skills and aeroplanes, they tried to make a buck performing for public with a variety of air stunts. Read the rest of this entry »
We saw Beech-18 on floats in four places during our trip to Red Lake-Oshkosh.
Of course, an encounter with the first one was very exciting. We met it in Red Lake, and it belonged to Chimo Air, a local charter company. I took a nice opportunity to walk ‘half-around’ this antique bird, C-FHZA, - sure, that’s the way - you can only do half around it, - unless you have a boat, or just jump into the water to finish full ‘half-walk-half-swim around’ the docked floatplane 
This trip across two countries was also a revelation of how many ‘antique planes on floats’ are still in commercial service doing charters across Ontario and Minnesota hauling loads of fishermen and their gear to the remote lodges across the vast ‘Water World’ in the Lake of the Woods area. Read the rest of this entry »
Oh, yes, - for myself, as a potential ‘leisure floatplane flier’, a torturous period of ‘daydreaming and seeing myself soaring over the beautiful back country’ began! But a good ‘kick on the head to awaken the lost’ for ‘reality check’ surely wouldn’t harm.
‘Just look into your logbook!’, one may scream, and this one would be right. Thousands hours of multi-engine jet time, and the only experience I had on a single-engine piston powered plane was a time when I flew the Yak-18T in the Aqtobe Civil Aviation Flight College ’some twenty and plus’ years ago.
I should tell you, we were still under influence of the Norseman Festival in Red Lake - this probably explains a great deal of ’sensitivity’ that would inevitably
make us deviate from the route we were going to whatever spot any airplane looking capable to take off from the water was parked at.
So, the seaplanes were in another area of particular interest to explore, moreover, - all of a sudden, one specific reason for this popped up at some moment.
Probably, the most known trivia about Oshkosh is that it is BIG.
Oh, yeah, it really is!
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