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Leg #1: Merrill Field (PAMR) to Valdez Pioneer Field (PAVD)
Flight Time: 1 Hour 16 Minutes
Distance: 103 NM
Total Time Flown: 1 Hour 16 Minutes
Total Distance: 103 NM

Well, it has started. My great Alaska Journey. I bought my Piper Super Pacer today, for a whopping $134,000. It's an older one, and it has about 1300 hours on it. I'm sure we'll have maintenance Problems.

Well, loaded up with 1 passenger, and 250 pounds of the gear we'll need if something goes wrong. We set off, bright and early from Merrill, making a couple circles to build altitude to clear the mountains. There are some 7500 ft peaks up there that wouldn't be very nice to my Pacer! The flight was going well until about halfway through, I discovered that my right wing tank was showing empty. Not good...I'm assuming the poppet valve didn't seal back up when I chacked fuel on the pre-flight. But I was halfway there, and had plenty of gas to make it to Valdez, so I kept on going rather than putting down in the middle of nowhere. It's been raining up here in Anchorage for about 3 weeks now, and it's still quite cloudy. I had to duck and dodge some of the cloud cover.

There is some amazing scenery in this area, especially the mountains and the glaciers! I finally made it to valdez with a fairly nice landing, taxied to parking, and found me a mechanic. Well, that little poppet valve wasn't cheap, a whopping 3500 dollars...ouch.

Here are some pictures from the flight.


Ready to taxi at Merrill


Goodbye Merrill, for a few months or so


Saying goodbye to work, I work in the hangar just above the left anti collision light


Finally got some altitude to get over these mountains


Pretty lake along the way


Lining up for final at Valdez


Just about to touchdown


Taxiing towards a nice lookin mountain


All tied down ready to go tomorrow