Take a Gander at this Goose

On Monday, museum director, Phyllis DeMassimo Kilgore invited Vicki and me to accompany her on a demonstration flight around the Anchorage area along with the other Lake Hood Goose.

The Alaska Aviation Museum is located on Lake Hood, the world's busiest seaplane base, adjacent to Ted Stevens International Airport.

I volunteer at the museum as a docent and open up the Boeing 737-200 (its tail can be seen in the background) for the summer fly-by picnic, Kids' Aviation Summer weekly camps, and other special events.

The Aviation Museum staff of volunteers restored this Goose after 16 years of rest; it was originally used by Alaska Fish and Game. The restoration required six months of volunteer work, including from some former Alaska Fish and Game employees who had worked on N789 before. The Goose flew again on May 29.

This Grumman G-21A Goose, N789 was donated to the Alaska Aviation Museum by Sen.Ted Stevens.

Burke with his hands on the slingshot

Permanent outrigger floats on the wing underside.

Downtown Anchorage

Burke Mees, our pilot, started up the engines, and while they warmed up our excitement redlined.

Burke is a commercial flight instructor who flew commercially in the Aleutian Islands starting in 1996. He has provided initial and recurrent training in the Goose as a Part 135 instructor/check airman, and he currently provides Grumman training for private owners.

Here's a video of us pulling off the museum ramp into Lake Hood for the taxi down to the east end by the Lakeshore Inn.

As our plane was warming up we were joined by the other Lake Hood Goose, N703, that would be flying in formation with us around Anchorage.

This video is our getting on step with lots of water splashing our windows because the goose sits on the water rather than above it like most float planes do.

And the takeoff to the west. This is a unique experience since the fuselage floats in the water with outrigger stabilizers on each wing.

Here are some shots of the area during our take-off and the first lap around town.

A couple of nice photos of one of the floatplane fingers and the Lake Hood gravel strip.

Here are a couple of nice, short videos of the other Goose flying in formation with our plane.

And some stills of the same thing.

Flying over Point MacKenzie and looking back on downtown Anchorage.

The other Goose is in formation flying toward downtown Anchorage and what post like this would be without an aerial view of beautiful Spenard Road and the world-famous Gwennies.