(This started as a random photo dump of work planes but then I realized they were in order and then a story developed so I’m sorry z)
This season will be my 6th flying in Alaska and I feel fortunate to have been paid to fly some neat airplanes to beautiful places in that time.
I took my first job with a family business with zero online presence, but an astoundingly diverse fleet of aircraft. I had a fresh multi rating and float rating but only like 5 hours in each. I was to start at the bottom of the barrel with hopes of proving myself to be able to one day to move into the twins and the floats.
I started in the mighty 207. A true workhorse. Simple, powerful, slow, beefy. 2019
I added the A36 into the mix that same month. After the 207, it was sleek, fast, and would still get off short strips very well. I fell in love with using pavement pounder type airplanes in places that they were definitely not meant to go. 2019
My first summer I was surprised that someone seemed to like me and let me start doing training in the Navajo. I loved it. Fast, stable, autopilot, IFR, and still great at slamming it on shitty “runways” in the middle of nowhere. Pulling hunters out of the north side of the Alaska range means blueberry picking while you wait. Flying twins in short grass strips is a hell of a time. 2019
Gas ain’t easy to come by in the Aleutians. 2019
After really enjoying flying the Navajo for a few hundred hours, my small amount of time in the Beech 99 made me realize what I had been missing. 2020
The first floatplane anybody trusted me to fly was this 180H, big engine, big tail and big gross so basically a 185. Amazing. I was hooked on working floats but that side of the business was staffed up at the time so I only got a little here and there. 2019
Next up on floats was the 206’s. Here we had them in a volcano caldera. Short hike to the rim for this view, and I never saw another plane here. In 2021, most my time was in one of these two 206’s.
In late 2021 my company bought a beaver. The most experienced pilot was slated to be the beaver pilot but he broke his ankle the week before the season started. What do ya know, promotion for me. I flew this thing most of 2022 with exception to the bushwheel stuff.
The little thing that could. Stinson 10A with an O320. Normally the wheels were only “light” when you needed them to be flying but hey a little bump at the end of the strip would send you airborne. Fueling out of stashed cans in the middle of a marathon day to pick up an 8 person backpacking group in a plane that could only hold one at a time. The other planes were tied up and the spot was 40 mins from home so I logged 10.5 hours that day. Part 91. 2022.
When I started the job, they said only the most experienced pilots got to fly the “Blackhawk” - a real carrot on a stick. A Stinson 180 modified beyond recognition on 35’s. A couple years later it was one of my main rides, getting paid to fly the most quintessential type of backcountry flying, with unlimited leeway from my boss. He told me he didn’t have hull insurance on it so keep that in mind but otherwise I could land anywhere I deemed fit. 2021
All of the aforementioned planes had been at one operator in southwest Alaska, the true Wild West. In 2022 I decided it was my last year there to move somewhere different, somewhere more refined. I finally succumbed to the draw of the otter.
Turbine otters on skis in the Denali area. I loved this job, I loved my coworkers and the airplanes and the little town I lived in. But then I met a girl in that weird little town. I plan to return here in the future but I had to step away for now. 2023
This past winter I made a bold move to follow my girlfriend (also a pilot) to somewhere I never hoped to end up, but flying a plane that I love. Going to spend 2024 flying this, learning to dock after years of only going to remote beaches.
