WEAVER FAMILY: Flying With The Alaskan Bush Pilot

July 2, 4 and 5 (Flying With Travis)

There is so much more we could have seen in Alaska before heading to Anchorage, but Travis told me it looked good for room on a trip if I wanted to fly with him on Monday. I wasn’t ready to head to Anchorage yet and had more to do, but I did want to get on some trips with him if possible, so I thought we better head into Anchorage on Sunday. One can get stuck for weeks trying to get through the passes from the west if the weather is low, and it appeared the pass we wanted to take was open and we headed for it. Talking with FSS and checking the wx cams was a big help, and of course the Ipad with the GPS input showing me exactly where I was on the sectionals was invaluable. How they did it years ago with only a chart I don’t know, but I know I would not have trusted it without someone showing me first. Flying the pass was a real highlight. There are many aircraft scattered through the passes – even some DC-3’s and Convairs I am told, but it is easy to see why because one must really know which valley to take and sometimes the right one is not the bigger one that looks like it goes somewhere.

When I flew in Alaska in 1983 I flew out west mostly over the tundra. It is miles and miles of nothing higher than a bush over most of the tundra, and the few places there are small hills are well known. Bush flying in Alaska is different than flying in the lower 48, that’s for sure, but even in Alaska flying in the tundra and flying out of Anchorage is as different as night and day. They are two different worlds, and a pilot who only works in one area feels completely out of place in the other. Travis has flown in Alaska for 3 years, and has been fortunate enough to have worked both areas – the first years in the tundra and the last year or more in Anchorage flying the mountainous areas. It was fun for me to get to see that part of Alaska bush flying, which I had not experienced before. .

Travis was busy working until the week before they left, and as it turned out it was good I came in when I did because I got to fly with him on three different days – even on the last trip he made. I could tell he was sad to see it all come to an end.

The first day we did a flight to Tatitlek and Chenego Bay, which is a run Alaska Air Transport (who he works for) regularly. They run several flights a week there and do scheduled seat fares to and from those villages as well as move mail and haul supplies. It was interesting seeing the connection the aircraft has for the village – that is their only personal tie to the outside world, and at each of the two villages there were around 30 or 40 people to greet Travis and look for mail they were expecting, and/or pick up the groceries or other supplies Travis had for them. Travis talked to them while unloading and loading, but there wasn’t too much time to chit chat because the airplane is kept busy most of the time and he must move on. At the second village we ended up waiting for a few hours while the one passenger did some work at the hospital. They usually cannot wait, but in this case because of maintenance due they could not return later, so we got to spend a few hours at the village. We watched the commercial fisherman in the harbor (about 15 big fishing boats) fishing the salmon run coming into the bay, which was really interesting. They took a small boat and held the end of a net while the big boat left out a large catch net maybe ¼ mile in a circle. Than they hauled it in and at the end dumped their catch into the boat. It was fun watching. One could also hear them yelling when they made a big haul. Travis tried some fishing too from the dock with the fishing rod he brought, but didn’t get anything. We also saw a whale in the bay.

We ate lots of salmon, and they get tired of the salmon, but it was great for us. They freeze and can salmon each year.

The second trip I did Jolene went along as well and was to a village in the interior, and the third trip I went on was to Middleton Island, which is a small island out in the ocean. There are many old WWII military facilities scattered throughout the state, as we saw on this island, but today we took a Fish and Wildlife person out to study birds and also took in supplies and mail for their camp. From there we went to Yakatut on the coast and it was extremely windy and gusty. It was pouring rain thoughout most of the trip, and landing a Navajo on the soggy grass strip after a fly-by seemed like a handful. It was quite soft on the take-off but the winds were blowing right down the runway, and after getting bounced around a bunch we headed to Chenega Bay for his last stop of his career with AAT. It proved to be a good one. They have company routes to get into all these places with strict rules to follow. At each point they have a visual aid to continue and descend to a certain altitude. The visibility was poor and it was interesting to observe the procedure. We got to 500 feet above the water and could continue as he found the next point he needed to continue. It was right on their company minimums and we were hugging the one hill so if he started losing visibility he could turn around and go back and wait or return to Anchorage. We didn’t have much reserve fuel to wait and make another attempt, so he needed to go back to base if he couldn’t get in this time. He was talking and showing me each point on the way in and when we rounded the last turn there was the airstrip in front of us, and then his last decision before landing was making sure he could turn in the go around if required, and the ceiling was low over the mountain but he could see enough of the mountain to make the decision and we landed in pouring rain and taxied back. From the smile on his face I think it must have felt rewarding to be able to complete the mission in those conditions on the last trip he was scheduled to fly. It allowed me to see again what it takes to make a good Alaskan Bush Pilot J. When we returned and he landed at Merrill Field for the last time I was glad I could share this last flight with him, especially with the challangeing conditions he had to work with. When we returned I noticed he put in a transponder code and when he called in they came back with “radar contact – fly the Campbell arrival” and that was all that needed to be said. Each based aircraft there has a discreet code, so when they dial in the code ATC already knows who they are and where they are based etc. This is all VFR – they do not like to use IFR more than they have to because it jams everything up, of course.

I also got to talk with the owners of Travis’s company. Dan and Josie own and run the company and they seemed like great people to work for. They had lunch and a cake for him on his last day, and I could tell they will miss him and he will miss them. Dan was a 777 Captain for United and after the pensions were taken away, he got fed up, quit, and moved to Alaska to fly. In the end he bought the company he was working for. As I mentioned before aviation in Alaska is different in many ways from other places, but Dan and Josie run a pretty tight ship and are very safety conscious and never push the pilots to take flights, and also are adamant that the dispatchers do not try to do the same. It is a cut throat business, and of course if you don’t take the flight someone else will, but they don’t let that influence them, so it was good to hear that. ROGER