I know its not African hunting... but reading the remarks about duct tape in Ivan's thread I could not resist to post this...

During a private "fly-in" fishing excursion in the Alaskan wilderness, the chartered pilot and fishermen
left a cooler and bait in the plane. And a bear smelled it. This is what he did to the plane...










The pilot used his radio and had another pilot bring him 2 new tires, 3 cases of duct tape,
and a supply of sheet plastic. He patched the plane together, and FLEW IT HOME !



Duct Tape ? Never Leave Home Without It

I got this same e-mail a couple weeks ago and thought it looked more like somebody put it down hard blew the tires and ran it into the bushes. I would have thought if a Bear did it you'd see teeth and claw marks on the planes fuselage and couldn't understand if a bear was after food why chew up the tires and such?
Anyways I loved the pictures and the story but would love to hear the real deal story!

By the way an excellent use of the handymans best friend.............duct tape!!

I don't know anything about the story but am inclined to think its true. Bears are like malicious teenagers some times.

For some reason tires are favorites as well as snow machine seats. A few years ago in the middle of summer a bear walked by my snow machine and bit a huge hole out of the middle of the seat and walked on. No reason, no moose leg left on the handle bars, just chomp and go.

It is fairly common for pilots to use tape to make temporary or not so temporary repairs to their planes.

It was a bear!

Punks in brown fur coats .......VERMIN !!
. Just about the time you think you should start feelin sorry for some pos bear it will bite a hole in every gas jug you have .....Full gas jugs , Gas jugs with nothing but the smell of gasoline on them ..... 4 wheeler tires , 4 wheeler seats , 4 wheeler handle bar grips ..

This is caused by an extreme frustration in some Bears; better known as 'Erectile disfunction'!

'tis a true story, I was at that camp, and that same plane was there too. Its an Outfitter on the Peninsula, and when I 1st got the email I thought it looked familiar....I called him & he said yup, his camp, and one of his pilots plane.

That looks expensive to fix.

You should see what they can do to a Zodiac that had fish smell in it......

The only close-call bear/aircraft incident I ever had was big muddy paw prints on both doors and on the horizontal stabilizer of my C-180...lucky for me, he decided to not to climb up there for a better look around. I learned to carry an ice cream pail full of mothballs and scatter a couple of dozen around the airplane when I had to leave it in the bush overnight. It seemed to help.

quote:

Originally posted by Tumbleweed:
You should see what they can do to a Zodiac that had fish smell in it......

Doesn't even take fish smell. A young brown bear decided my Avon made a lovely trampoline. Watched him do the damage before I could grab the rifle. We were eating dinner on the cabin deck and knew we had a problem bear around as he had be causing "other" trouble. Didn't DLP him as it would have been after-the-fact.

Tried my best to patch it up, but it was never the same afterward.

Too bad about his plane, but the whole duct tape thing is awsome.

Bush pilots often refer to duct tape as "100mph tape..." Took a flight from King Salmon to remote river fish camp and helped the pilot use the "100mph tape" to tape down the engine cowling. The pilot was up in years and said he had been flying for more than 50yrs, so figured he knew what he was doing. Landed on the river with narry a bump, and he shut off the engine and we drifted right to the edge of the dock. He had done that a few times over the years I would say.

I used to spend a lot of time at McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento when it was a depot level repair facility for A-10 Warthogs. After Desert Storm, there were quite a few of them there with lines of duct tape along the wings and fuselage where they had taken small arms fire. Apparently, the in-country maintenance guys would just put duct tape over the holes, and the pilots would go back out and fly some more. They would only come back stateside to be fixed when they were due for a major maintenance or the damage was severe.

so that's where the military got 100 mph tape. we still use that term today. I always thought to my self, isn't that just duct tape.

quote:

Originally posted by gohip2000:
so that's where the military got 100 mph tape. we still use that term today. I always thought to my self, isn't that just duct tape.

Not all duct tape is created the same. I've used Mil-surp OD green duct tape and it is way better than some of the stuff you get at Wally World.

I always keep a roll of the black Gorilla "duct tape" in moose camp and on the boat. Most of the private bush plane owners I know hate leaving a plane unattended because of bears. Back in the early 80's a friend of mine in Cold Bay Alaska was out duck/goose hunting and left his Mark IV 18'.5" Zodiac unattended with some geese and ducks in it. I wish I would have kept the pictures of the completely destroyed boat. You ever see the transom ripped off a Zodiac?

quote:

This is what he did to the plane...

Unbelivable but its mayby true. Thanks for shareing.

Seloushunter