Saturday afternoon flew out of OKC headed to WhiteHorn Cove on Fort Gibson Lake. Saw a couple weeks ago that the restaurant at the marina was open for the season and decided to fly over for lunch. Got a late start and decided to turn the lunch trip into a dinner trip. Saw a few small fires burning and then just east of OKM is when the sky got extremely smoky. Pushed on and it cleared up in about 10 miles.

On approach to OL20 I saw what initially looked like a mudhole about halfway down the runway. Was getting bumped around pretty good at treetop level so I turned it into a low pass to get a close look at the rest of the runway. The "mudhole" ended up being about 100+ feet of scattered branches, logs, and other debris from high water that had just recently receded.

Second approach was better and I was set up to land after the debris pile. After touchdown I still had to be careful to miss some bigger branches. Parked, shut down, and some guy in a golf cart was there to take me to the marina to eat. Had the patty melt and it was pretty good. When I was ready to leave the same guy was there to take me back to the plane. He told me about the high water and how it was about halfway up the windsock pole.

I was flying directly into the sun on the way back to OKC, which made the visibility of the smoky section way worse. Got through it and stopped in OKM to fuel up. My usual fueling technique is mains full with 40 gallons, and then 5 gallons in each outboard. Lets me land at my home airport with 40+ gallons so I don't have to get gas before the next flight and can make a full roundtrip.

Wasn't able to get the camera under the wing turned on for the approach in OL20 for some reason, but I had the interior camera recording. Had them both running for the departure, but it'll take a while to get those edited together.

30 second landing clip: https://youtu.be/SYSs0HX1bUg
A few pictures: https://imgur.com/a/NpNMI

Cool trip! I hope I can get out to a few new and fun places when the weather improves.

Good fuel management idea using the auxiliaries to get you home so that the mains are ready for full legs at next flight. I did something similar for the last Lone Star Maule gathering back in February. Filled the auxiliaries full and used them to get to the gathering at a private fuel-less airstrip in north Texas and still had 40 gallons available for the fly-out the next day. The auxiliaries have been an under utilized resource for me and I should make a practice of using them more often.

Nice trip report, too!

DeltaRomeo wrote:The auxiliaries have been an under utilized resource for me...

Guilty here as well especially since I am also based out of a field without fuel.

That is a neat looking approach and runway, definitely looks like that high water made a mess though.

AndrewK wrote:

DeltaRomeo wrote:The auxiliaries have been an under utilized resource for me...

Guilty here as well especially since I am also based out of a field without fuel.

That is a neat looking approach and runway, definitely looks like that high water made a mess though.

I try to plan (sometimes unsuccessfully) 1-2 flights in advance. I hate the idea of starting a flight knowing that I've got to find a stop for fuel pretty quickly. Sometimes I'll fly into OKC to pick up a friend and even though their fuel is way more expensive than surrounding uncontrolled airports, I'll get gas (mains only though) just to avoid making another stop.