So, after much thought and many, many business plans I bought a single pilot 135 based out of Homer. It is exciting, fun, very time consuming and more than a little scary. I don't have a website or even logo yet (working on both). I guess I know what I am doing for the next 20 years or so. Oh....... did I mention that it is a beaver on floats? N77BA.

Wow! Good on ya! I wish you all the luck and best business possible.

EB

There's worse places to be than Homer...
Best of luck.

Headoutdaplane wrote:I don't have a website or even logo yet (working on both).

Homerrhoid Air (I'm sure you've already considered that)

Great for you, I wish you the best. When I get to Hommer I will look you up.

Ken in Alaska

Congrats, that takes guts.

Beautiful beaver.

That's a good office to have. ^^ Best of luck.

Tough business, that 135 gig, especially in Alaska. That said, you've got some fantastic country to work in. Just be careful on those long overwater flights to the Peninsula and Kodiak. My Momma told me there is no such thing as the Boogey Man, but I have met him, and he lives out there near the Barren Islands.

Insist on good maintenance and hold your customers to YOUR standards, not theirs, and you'll do well.

Best of luck to you.

MTV

Love a beav.

Thanks to all for the good thoughts.

Best of Luck! Sounds cool.

Sweet!! I like your Beaver

Good luck to you.

Glad to see somebody new will be operating that beautiful bird! No disrespect to the previous folks, but I tried several times to charter with them for friends of mine and they were never willing to work with me (long story). Anyhow, I always hated driving by the lake on a calm sunny day and seeing that ole bird sitting there instead of making money!! Hopefully a new and motivated fellow like yourself will do well with it! PM me your contact details as I'll be needing some flights done beyond my planes capacity this summer!

Jeremy

You will do great Wes!!!!

See you in a few weeks.

Hmmmm. I've always heard that the best way to make a small fortune in aviation (including SE 135) is to start with a large fortune. Hope your luck is better than that, sincerely.

Cary

Wes, couldn't be happier for you. The ride in the 206 delivering stuff was fun but now we have to come visit again so that we can get a ride in your new Beaver!!!

Do you still have your boat? The cruise over to Halibut Bay for dinner was a memorable one for us, now you will have to visit on Whidbey Island for us to reciprocate. Best wishes for the new business. FF

FloatFlyer wrote:Wes, couldn't be happier for you. The ride in the 206 delivering stuff was fun but now we have to come visit again so that we can get a ride in your new Beaver!!!

Do you still have your boat? The cruise over to Halibut Bay for dinner was a memorable one for us, now you will have to visit on Whidbey Island for us to reciprocate. Best wishes for the new business. FF

Hey ford - good to see you're still lurking around! Miss your plane yet??

Garth

What do you think, Garth?? Actually I am not missing it YET, but come Tuesday I will be driving north across the border for the second time out of 200+ trips to Baja, sigh. Where I used to fly for 2 hrs I now get to drive for 10+ hrs to get to the same place. This summer is going to be a challenge. TBC

It has been a great summer so far. The weather in June and July was the best I have seen in the eight years I have lived here. That factor helped a lot in our first year. Our (my wife runs the bookings and.....okay, she runs everything, I just fly) learning curve has been pretty much vertical from the get go. I went to Kenmore Air to get checked out in the Beaver. Ten hours with their Director of Ops and Check Airman, got me familiar with the airplane. I think they had a lot of fun because I insisted on a lot of river and accuracy work. That got me the basics. There are some do's and don'ts of the Beaver but it is pretty easy to fly. What I didn't do enough of, was ground/water handliing....more later.

Got back to Alaska, 77BA's annual was due in April, unfortunately Lake Hood didn't break up until about three weeks later than normal...Speedbump.....then I was having the door posts replaced due to an AD, they found corrosion in the birdcage.....big speedbump. It took a while to find one, but we did and got it on. Then my POI wasn't available for a checkride....speedbump. Finally got one with another inspector from the FSDO. I have been taking/giving 135 rides for a while now, but this was the most comprehensive ride I have taken. No worries, first 135 ride on floats so was to be expected passed it and the inspector gave me a couple gems of advice.

Next day I am flying revenue flights. It always sucks to be the 'new guy' even though I have been flying out of Homer for 8 years, I was the new guy on the lake. I have become better friends with the other operators on the lake than I was when I was on wheels, and they have been amazing sources of information. There are two that have a lot of Beaver time and they have been awesome about giving me tips....and I listen. I hit a learning plateau about 150 hours into the season, it just didn't seem as if I was making any improvements as far as refining my techniques and getting better, I sat down with both of them, as well as the former owner and grilled them. After another twenty five hours or so I felt like I was improving again.

Ground/water handling.....HOLY COW, talk about learning. I fly into McNeil bear sanctuary two to three times a week. Strong, winds, tidal flow, and river flow and a spit of land with a steep beach make for a wonderful learning environment on how a Beaver acts. Basically I have learned that preplanning your beaching, and putting your aircraft where you want it to be coincident with where it wants to be is very helpful. If you try to put it where you are fighting wind and current, it will make your life miserable.....fast. The steep beach means that when you try to work the plane around it is easy to get over the top of your hip waders. Use your imagination on this, me pouring water out of my hip waders in front of clients and staff.....four...trips....in....a....row! My wife now has two pairs of dry clothes for me at the office, although I will say that I haven't had to use them in a while.

Sailing, I may not be a master yet, but quickly becoming so. Backwards down the spit, around the hook at the end and then follow the river channel happens about every fifth or sixth trip to McNeil. Fortunately when the wind is blowing that hard I don't need a ton of room to take off even with a load.

Your take away from this post: I had about 250 hours in floats before I began this adventure most in 182 and 206 two ferry trips from the lower 48 and flying in this area. If I was to do it again, in my training I would have insisted on flying the plane at gross weight, and spent a lot more time on ground handling involving different winds, and beaching areas ie beaches and river banks.

All in all it has been a great summer, business has been good, and our clients have been great. I will put it in a hanger this winter, after the last of the fall hunting trips, and return to wheel flying at my old company until next year. Next year will go smoother as we have learned so much. I have been blessed to be able to do what I love in a place that I love. I have two videos on our facebook page Beluga Air, I can't figure out how to post them here. Remember I am a pilot not a producer.

I imagine you're not the only one hosting videos on Facebook, so I added a BBcode to embed videos here.

Hover over the "facebookvideo" button in the posting editor to see the usage. You have to use their Embed Code feature to get the videoid of the video, and paste into our tags.

[ facebookvideo ] 480473408696498 [ /facebookvideo ]