When Alaska Airlines still flew the Goose, Ketchikan AK, winter 1972

Looks like a fun day for flying floats.

Reminds me of how annoying frozen water rudder cables were!

Fixed sponsons. That must have been fun.

iflyforpie wrote:Fixed sponsons. That must have been fun.

I was thinking the same thing

Just fuelling up for another 8 hours or so of great flying in wonderful weather for "just another day on the job."

I can imagine how inconvenient those sponsons must have been for docking ........ but the promotional pictures for these types almost always show the aircraft on a nice beach, or taxiing out of the water up a shallow angle ramp.

Alaska Airlines used to bring their Turbo Goose into Rupert and taxi it up the ramp at Seal Cove. It was impressive at the time for the sound of the turbine, different from the usual 5 or 6 Goose that resided there at the time.

I was told that Alaska used to firewall the engines on takeoff ( and had their own overhaul shop). I only firewalled the Goose once and when I found time to look at the m.p. it was coming back down through 42". Wonder how high they would go? Testament to the 985's durability.