Comments on: Flying in Alaska is a Little Different

By: Rob Mark

Rob Mark — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:19:20 +0000

Thanks for your note Norman. I too have a story much like yours about going North.

A buddy called me up in the 70s when I was still working for FAA and asked me to go with him to Alaska to fly Twin Otters as they built the pipeline.

I was too chicken to give up the stable living. Besides, I remembered reading the Call of the Wild!

Always wondered how my life would have changed if I’d gone. Jim still lives up there and flies as a true freight dog.

By: Norman

Norman — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:38:49 +0000

My first boss had spent his early years in Canada (later with Air America) on the McKenzie river flying Beavers on skis and floats. I was consumed with stories about Alaskan flying, ‘Weldy’ Phipps and the other stars of the North were there as the light went out.
I was set on making my way there but life has its wicked jokes – I ended up in the desert and the Far East.

Something deep down wants to go North and do it still.

Great post Rob, excellent targeting.

By: Kim Welch

Kim Welch — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:21:53 +0000

Rob,
When I still had hair, and the shooting had died down in SE Asia, I spent some winter months flying out of NAS Adak in the Aleutians. Our P3s certainly weren’t bush planes, but the flying was both fascinating and a little scary upon occasion. To this day, I’ve never experienced anything like the wx flying that was routine there. (even got a Flying Mag, “I Learned About Flying From That” out of it.) Rapidly changing wx, fog simultaneous with 50+ knot winds and GCAs to the runway that always had a xwind, alternates 1000 miles distant, approach plates annotated, “successful go around unlikely”.My favorite mission was to pick up NOAH ice observers in EDF and fly them clockwise around the coastline to Pt Barrow …. at an altitude of a few hundred feet. The view was unparalleled.

By: Best of the Web — Golf Hotel Whiskey

Best of the Web — Golf Hotel Whiskey — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:52:45 +0000

[...] an interesting note and speaking of winter flying, Robert Mark, the editor of Jetwine, has recently noted the Bush Pilots blog at the Alaska Dispatch. The blog includes a fascinating collection of stories [...]