Fun in the sun

Typically my day's off are not usually relevant to this aviation based blog but yesterday broke that mold.
As I was out running earns yesterday I received a call from my father in-law asking if i would want to meet up with a friend of his who has heard about my blog and wanted to go flying with me. Well what the heck it's a beautiful day and well I do love to fly. To top it off this guy is wanting to do aerobatics so I'm totally in!
As I make the 2 hour drive to meet up with him I start wondering to my self who is this guy? what type of plane does he have? it's probubly some guy with a Citabria.
About an hour into my drive I get another call from my father in-law giving me more detail on this guy. Apparently he moonlights as a professional competition aerobatic pilot flying in competitions and air shows across the country. I start to think to myself. Now wait a minute... this professional aerobatic pilot like's my stories...enough so that he want's to fly with me personally. Ok this guy does know I'm not one of those Alaskan TV pilot's right? Seriously I didn't think my stories were that good, hell I was even thinking I was being too detailed, a bit negative and was debating a change in writing style. Plus this guy has to have a million stories better than mine.
As I arrive my father in-law is waiting on me. We talk and hang out while we wait for the guy to arrive. When he arrives we head to the hanger. As the door opens my mind can't believe what my eyes are seeing! sitting in the corner is a bright red Pitts C model!! Ok surely this guy isn't going to let me fly his half million dollar toy...no this will just be a ride along which is fine because I am a cheap date!
Looking over the plane me and the guy "J" start to talk. He tells me how much he enjoys my stories and is looking forward to flying with me. after a bit of chit chat he begins briefing me on the flight and what we will be doing. During this conversation he tells me that I will be flying and not to worry because I can't do anything to break the airplane. I'm thinking to myself "LOL wana bet"!!!
All suited up we hop in and taxi out and away we went.
For the next 45 minutes we proceeded to burn a hole in the sky. He showed me how to set the plane up to do a handful of maneuvers I spent the rest of the time putting on an air show for friends and family who were waiting on the ground.
I want to give a big thanks to J for sharing his toys with me and to RG for introducing us.
Hahahaha to all my readers out there I am now taking request's. If you would like to personally fly with me I will be more that happy to do so and promise to write about you and the flight in my blog.

Free at last Free at last

This morning I woke up with the full intention of doing absolutely nothing. As I arrived in Op's the girls told me I had a four leg trip to fly today. I told them I did not want to do anything...I swear those girls don't listen to me!
Annoyed I give in knowing the four legs will still get me back in time for my dead head to Anchorage so off to get the plane ready.
I grab the flight manifest and see I am running cargo runs with Hazmat on this trip. This is fine with me no passengers to deal with. Still in the mind set of doing as little as possible today I set up the plane so that I can sling the cargo net from the roof like a hammock so I can crawl back and go to sleep.
The first leg captain Trapper is flying and there is too much cargo in the back to use my hammock so I intend to wait until the second leg after we off load some cargo I should have plenty off room and Captain Trapper can fly.
After the first stop we start our taxi out Captain trapper look's at me and tells me "this is your leg"...but I don't want to fly today. Crap he out ranks me....I swear I need to get myself another one of those stripes!!
Off we go. As I descend into the next stop I decide that I am going rebellious for them making me fly. I fully intend to use every inch of this ice covered runway for my landing. I'm not going into beta or reverse I am going to let this thing roll out all the way to the end letting the breaks do all the work.
Now before we go any further let me explain a few things. The break system on this plane is fully capable of stopping the plane in the amount of runway I had but the airline is cheap and using breaks wears them out and they have to replace them second having to taxi back down a runway wears on the tries causing them to have to be replaced more often so they like us to land and stop in time for a turn into the ramp to prevent wear.
Today I don't care for one the plane go's down for a phase inspection as soon as we get back and during that inspection they have to replace the breaks anyway second I think it will be cute to blow by the turn with villagers standing on the ramp waiting for us in the cold and then smoke them out when I pull up.
upon landing I use damn near all of the runway..holding the breaks the whole time. Now it's very cold out side and the breaks are very very hot by the time I taxi back to the ramp. lol when I hop out of the plane the breaks are producing more fog than a twisted sister concert. All I can do is giggle and think " morning b****es"
When I get back in the plane Captain Trapper is grinning at me like he thought it was clever too but then again he always grins when he farts and he is constantly doing that. I didn't smell anything and this guy will make you want to jump out of the plane some times so I'll assume he thought it was funny too.
The rest of the trip was uneventful most of the time I was giggling about what I had done.
When we returned home I could not get out of the plane fast enough. I run into Op's and ask if I am released from duty the girls laugh and shake their heads so I make a B-line upstairs to pack my bag.
Now I have to sit here and wait for the plane to come in about 4 hours from now. I'm so damn excited I might even skip to the plane singing "I'm off to see the wizard"
Well folks hopefully this will be my last post until I return to duty on the first. At least when I return I will be back to rooming with Dan...no more of new guy or Hollywood thank God!!

All good thing's must come to an end

Today marks the end to our good weather and hopefully this months duty for me!!!!
Although today was a very beautiful day here on the Alaskan peninsula the winds have started to shift and pick up speed. Landings have become fun and exciting as cross winds were 35-40 knots and the best runways having a surface equivalent to an ice skating ring! hahaha can we say breaking action Nil!!! thank god for Beta and Reverse!
Even though the wind's were not favorable and the annoyance of the constant shaking from the turbulence it was one of those day's were I took a thousand pictures in my mind that I will never forget.
As I look down at the bearing sea below me it reminds me of the sky with all the snow covered ice packs looking like fluffy clouds and the glistening cold blue water of the bearing painting the sky around them. It looked to me just like a calm spring morning with a sky scattered with clouds but I was looking down as if viewing it through a mirror. 
On the leg home I was in a hurry and didn't want to fly so I let George do it for me. ( the auto pilot) As I sat there looking out of my window at the mountain range I couldn't help but notice the base of the ranges for as far as I could see looked very different. They looked like the were shear cliffs dropping off for hundreds of feet and all the ranges were connected together. Now I know this not to be true...I have flown through those ranges hundreds of times. As I keep staring at it, it looks blurred almost distorted like as if I was looking through a very out of focus lens.I take my sun glasses off rub my eyes and look again, nope still there. I wipe the window with my sleeve thinking the window must be smudged. This also had no effect. I start to panic thinking my vision is going so I start looking around...every thing close or with out feature looks right but the rang is still distorted. As I sit there wondering what is going on I look over at my OAT gauge (outside Air temp) and it is oddly warm up here as compared to on the ground. All at once it hit's me! What I am seeing is caused by a temperature inversion. (when the air temp above is warmer than below) Though I have flown in temp inversions many times before I have never seen this phenomenon before only remember reading about it in books
A few more minutes of taking this in and I as done fading into day dreaming until out decent into the airport. 
The change in winds mean a departure of the good weather here as it will only be a matter of time before the next big low pressure system pushes in making flying and life here miserable.
I hope it holds out for another day because tomorrow one of our two planes is supposed to go in for a phase inspection meaning I wont have to fly Thursday or Friday. Without having flights means I can be released from duty two days early. I only have to fly tomorrow morning if we have enough flights to constitute flying both planes, if not I get to hang out all day and dead head to Anchorage tomorrow night starting my migration south in search of warmer weather, better food, and softer beds!

Finally a break

The last few day's here have been absolutely beautiful! The only thing missing would be warm temp's.
With the weather being the best it has been all winter it gave us a chance to fly a lot to get caught up on moving freight and passengers. It also gave me a chance to get back to the type of flying I love to do....Low and fast!!!
Friday and Saturday were so nice that when I was flying leg's empty I would take her down and fly map of the earth. Low-T and my self did a lot of sight seeing and caribou spotting during these flight's.
For those of you who have never experienced flying like this, it is truly exhilarating. When we are at altitude ie. cruising at 10,000 feet and doing 200mph you don't get to enjoy the sense of speed but if your flying at 200mph at let's say 500 feet you get the full sense of that type of speed and it doesn't get any better than that for me.
Low-T and I have been flying a lot together over the last few week's. It feel's like we are finally getting a nitch for flying with each other being able to think and react for the other.
This make's it feel less like work and more enjoyable for the both of us.
With the amount of flying that we did on Friday and Saturday enabled us to have today off. This is fantastic! I haven't had a day off to were I could sleep in since I started my rotation on the first. We typically work 15-20 days on with 10-15 off, we live in an airline provided apartment witch is located above the maintenance hanger/ terminal. So we literally live at work during this time.
I used my day off today just laying around and cooking dinner witch might seam mundane to most but for us it's like a vacation as we don't often have time to really cook. Today I decided to make spaghetti witch is like a delicacy out here due to the high cost of supply's.            

A Sport Similar to Cage fighting

The past few day's have been nothing short of bad weather day's. So what do we do on bad weather day's? Well we fly of-course! We have made numerous flights up and down the Peninsula as well as the Chig's in blizzard conditions. Some flights turned back never making it to their destination...they were the smart one's, and others continued with reckless dissregard...That would be Captain Hero and myself. Now if you haven't gathered by previous stories that the Chig's can be a rough and dangerous place on a good day going into there during a blizzard is just adding fuel to the fire.
If you were to consider Bush flying through these mountain ranges along the Alaskan Peninsula and Aleutian Island's a sport it would be similar to cage fighting. Some day's you can jump into that ring and come out victorious without a scratch and others you come out feeling like you went 12 rounds as Chuck Liddell's personal punching bag. Most people do not understand the effects flying let alone flying in turbulence has on the body and how exhausting it can be. As only a small percent of the flying public every encounter turbulence for an extended period of time and an even smaller percent ever experience mountain wave or sever turbulence.We encounter it almost daily. I do understand that our passengers have to encounter it with us but here is where it differs for the pilot's... the passengers only have to encounter it once (getting to their destination) us pilot's have to go through it on the way back too! We are like a walking Doublemint  add! "double the pleasure double the fun"  
Now you might ask well why did you fly in it then. Well let's take yesterday for example. My self and Captain Hero were dispatched out on good weather but while en-route the weather at the destination got bad and dispatched called us in the air to tell us to turn around and come home. When your flying with Captain Hero you don't turn around (this is why we call him Hero) he will flat out ignore dispatch and go anyway. Now most level headed Captain's would turn back at that point or at least ask the co-pilot if he is comfortable continuing. Captain Hero is the complete opposite He goes and the co-pilot is along for the ride weather he or she like's it or not and no matter what the co-pilot has to say about it. (this is why we don't like flying with him).
Now don't get me wrong I'm not afraid of flying in bad weather I mean I did take a job as a pilot in one of the most dangerous place's in the world to fly solely to become the best of the best but I have limits. I don't feel that I should risk my life or the lives of the passengers by flying through mountain passes in 0 visabilaty with heavy blowing snow and white-out conditions to get grandma to a village to see the grand kid's or airlift in the villages week supply of soda. That being said there are thing's that I would risk it for no questions asked like a person especially a small child in need of emergency medical care or rescuing people from a downed aircraft basically nothing short of saving a life. The rest can wait until tomorrow.
My Room mate Dan got rotated back home last night and I'm not pleased. In Dan's place they brought in an out of base pilot to replace him. This guy is about the most anti-social person I have ever meet. I don't want to even try to hang out with this guy. I know I'm an ass but this guy is really annoying! So beside captain Low-T and the Phoenix I have no one to hang out with. If you have never spent time in Bush Alaska it get's very boring very quick!
This morning with the sub-in pilot following me like a lost puppy I head down to Op's and decide to break the new guy in by getting him assigned to captain Hero. Today was supposed to be a busy day as we had a lot of freight to move to the Chig's so captain Hero and the new guy would take a plane full of passengers and mail while captain Low-T and I flew a load of Hazmat down there. we get the plane's loaded, look at the weather and once again it's bad. the high winds down there today were blowing the snow around causing ground blizzards. Captain Low-T and I decide to stay and wait for the weather to improve while captian Hero and the new guy get in the plane and take off.
As the hours tic by and the weather not improving we start getting creative in keeping ourselves occupied with out knowing we are even doing it. It started when Low-T started singing "Got Moves Like Jagger" out load in the middle of the Op's room! Now let me set the picture for you. Captain Low-T is a middle age white guy and he is wearing this purple monstrosity of a coat that I have been teasing him about for day's. hahaha it crack's me up just thinking about it! On top of that he wears glasses (the big aviator one's) now I'm not making fun of him for wearing glasses because he can't help that, but combined with the purple jacket he looks like some sort of rendition of Elton John singing in the highest pitch he can muster. A few songs and many games of Angry Bird's later we some how wined up with a foot ball in the maintenance hanger. And the shenanigans begin! By this point Low-T and I have been playing all day like little kid's stopping every now and then to look at the weather, talk about how bad we feel for not going, chuckle and go back to playing. Keep in mind Low-T and myself have flow in the worst weather you could think of the last couple of week's so we are the last Bush pilot's motivated to do anything today. Our Chief arrived from Anchorage mid morning and the General was also here today and I guess they had already figured this out or just thought our playing had gone on long enough that there was no getting us back today so they just let us continue. We pilot's are like big kid's leave us alone long enough and anything is bound to happen.The Chief or the General could have tried to put a stop to this nonsense at any time but it would have been like pulling a kid out of Chucky Cheese...you could do it but we would go kicking and screaming! We went largely ignored by them and some how slowly corrupted the entire work force and had everyone involved in our shenanigans. I don't know how it happened it just did, I don't know if they all just saw how much fun we where having and joined in but I certainly didn't hold a recruiting convention.
By this time captain Hero and the new guy had already come back picked up another load and were off again...Sucker's!
The Chief finally asked us why we were not flying when he walked into to see we had all of Operations completely shut down due to an Angry Birds competition being conducted on about five different devices. Low-T and I looked at each other shrugged our shoulders and walked out to avoid the question. as we walked out Low-T looked at me and said " I ain't leaving till they kick me out" LOL right on Low-T right on!
My day finally end's with me curled up on a couch taking a nap to recuperate from a hard day of playing.    

Being put in check

Every day across the world people file into airplanes and take to the skies. To most it is a way of life, to some it is a right. Though thousands of flights a day are completed with out incident and can be considered mundane and uneventful.That is not the case as a bush pilot in Alaska.
Most day's can be considered as mundane by the inner circle of bush pilot's but then there  are those day's that are gut wrenching, one's that really make you look at life in a whole different way. Today was one of those day's for me.
My day began with temp's hitting -56 with the wind chill. There was  low pressure system  moving up from the south causing blizzards and complete havoc along the North Pacific.
Down in Op's I was assigned the Chig's run with Captain Low-T.
The Chig's weather was down right bad all morning and Low-T and I had debated on canceling the whole thing all morning. Now I am happy to once again be flying with Captain Low-T as I have much respect for him and trust him to make the right decision's.
After a four hour wait a bunch of bad weather report's and incoherent nonsense from our dispatcher we decide to go. (That was bad idea number 1!)
we load up and head for our first stop at Port. Now the Port is the last airport on the peninsula before getting into the mountains at the Chig's. Once we arrive we decide to call and get a weather report for the Chig's.... what we get is complete BS and we believed it.
So we decide to continue onto the Chig's based on this BS. (Bad idea number 2!)
We depart the Port and decide that the best way to get into the Chig's is going to be climbing up and flying over the range and descending down into the bay on the other side.
Now our next stop was supposed to be Lake witch is south of the Bay so we would get updated weather reports from the Bay and Lagoon as we cross over the range.
As I call and get these weather report's it becomes very obvious to me that the people giving the reports have no idea what they are doing because I was getting reports of ceiling's being 3 mile's at the Lagoon (3 mile's is 15,000 feet) . We are at 7,000 feet and we are in the clouds so I know that's wrong. the next report we get from the Lagoon it that there is some "pretty weird swirling snow at the end of the runway". Let me give you a brief rundown of a weather report. visibility is how far you can see horizontally and is measured and reported in miles, ceiling is how high the bottom of the clouds are and are measured and reported in feet. so a ceiling of 3 mile's is completely wrong and any time you have anyone say weird swirling (unless this is followed by hundred dollar bill's) is never good!
The next report we get is from the Bay. By this time we have crossed the range and are over the Bay. The Bay is telling us that the ceiling is 600 feet and 1 mile vis. WRONG we are still at 7,000 feet and I can see the Bay. Who the F trains these people? 
Low-T and I decided that we should land at the Bay first and call and get a new weather report from the Lagoon and the Lake.(Bad idea number 3!)
We make it into the Bay with a little moderate turbulence and 45 knot cross winds.
While on the ground at the Bay we are told that the Lake weather has gotten better and that we should head that way. We load up and taxi to depart. We roll down the runway build our speed and lift off about 3/4 of the way down the runway. Just as we start to climb we hit a micro burst. ( A Micro burst is a sudden shift or change in wind) This micro burst happened to be an extrema down draft. We are now being forced toward the ground and with the engine red lined we are not able to climb. As we start running out of runway and altitude we are slammed back into the runway. As Low-T struggles to get the plane flying again before we hit the water I start getting ready to go swimming. (the Runway that the Bay is surrounded by open Ocean on three side's) This unfolding I start thinking about how cold that water is going to be as I know it is hoovering around 0..... there are ice packs floating around in it for god sake. Some how Low-T pulls it off and get's us airborne again. Thank God because I forgot to bring my floaties!
We make it out of the Bay and start our way down to the Lake. As we turn out of the Bay into the Lagoon we start getting rocked by more turbulence. As we pass by the village we see about a half mile ahead and the vis is 0/0 meaning the clouds are all the way to the ground. we cant see the water, the mountains,or islands so we decide not to continue. Low-T banks us to the right to get us turned 180 away from the cliffs. Our turn take's us across the Lagoon to the base for the bearing sea side range wich is on the west side of the Lagoon. At this point we are (let's just say) 500 feet off the water when all of the sudden we hit a roll wave! ( A roll wave is a mass of air coming off the top of a mountain rolling downward. think of it like a tornado turned on it's side.) As we hit this roll wave we are rolled over to about 110 degree's. Keep in mind 90 degree's is completely on our side and 180 degree's we are up side down! we are 110 and still rolling over. Low-T has the controls maxed out trying to right the plane. I grab on to help out ( Natural reaction in a situation like that). with the controls maxed out we are still rolling and quickly. Here's a little info on how airplanes work. There are planes out there that can fly upside down. The 208 is not one of those! Now if we were at 15,000 feet this wouldn't be a big deal because we could barrel roll it and get it right side up before we hit the ground or if we were in an aerobatic plane like the one's that you see at your local airshow that are designed to fly upside down. But we didn't have the altitude to recover nor was the 208 designed to fly upside down. If we continue and hit 180 (completely upside down) We would fall out of the sky like a duck on it's back and hit the water in about two seconds with a force equal to two diesel locomotives hitting head on!!  Adrenalin pumping and both of us on the controls fighting the plane we finally right the beast before it's too late. Now finally righted we are now both completely pissed off mostly due to our type a personalities. ( the vast majority of pilots have type A personalities and part of that is a dislike of not being in control) 
Low-T and I decide that we are bugging out and begin to climb out back over the range.
When we get over the range and into cruse Low-T give control of the aircraft to me I guess to give him a chance to finally calm down from the previous event's.
I am not pleased as I too am worked up and feeling very tired from having the shit kicked out of me for the last hour.
I take my headset off and turn to the back to check on the passengers, we have 7 onboard and we have not checked on them since the roll wave or told them we are headed back to base.
As I look back all of them are white as ghost's and still clenching their seats. I yell over the roaring of the turbine that has just be thoroughly abused but still running like a chap to inform them we are going back to base. I swear it looked like I was carrying a load of life size bobble head doll's as their head's bobbed back and forth in approval of this decision.
For the next fifteen minutes there was a lot of discussion between Low-T and my self about what had happened, are dislike of dispatch and me telling him to just draw a frowny face on our manifest instead of filling it out. The rest of the trip was quiet as we both needed time to our selves.
Upon my return to base I walk straight though Op's without stopping to chat as I am in no mood to talk to dispatch so I head up to my apartment grab a beer and begin to tell Dan what had happened.
Low-T joined us about 5 minutes later and the three of us proceed to empty our fridge of beer.
With all the beer gone we decide to move to the bar where there is plenty of beer.
When we arrive at the bar some of the passengers are there drinking as well and the events of the day are already front page new's.
Sorry to all the readers out there for not adding dramatic music but Flying wild Alaska used it all up!   

Lucky Me!!!

Well I got assigned the Chig's run this morning with Captain Hero.....lucky me!!!
This ought to be as fun as a trip to the dentist!! By the way the locals talk I should feel honored that he would hang up his trident and come all the way down from the heavens just to fly with me....but I don't!!!!
So I thought this morning I would try something different today....play games with Captain Hero!
Today it will be the quiet game! I'm shooting for totally annoying him and if that doesn't work at the very least I won't have to talk to him. Well I have to say this worked out quite well I ignored him the entire flight through the Chig's. I even had time to watch all the seals hanging out on the ice pack. The rest of the flight was uneventful and very enjoyable for me until about 15 min's out of base. Yep sure enough Hero had to open his mouth and start irritating me.
This time it was about how many minutes out I call dispatch and let them know we are almost there. Normally I call 15 minutes out but with this guy you must call 10 minutes no more no less.Today he started a rampage when I called 10 out apparently today he wanted to call 8 out...my bad for not being able to read your mind you crazy ass!
Really I think he became wise to my game and decided to change the rule's to annoy me.....touch`e Hero but keep screwing with me and I'll start playing the kazoo and we'll see who can be more annoying!!!

Recovery Air Lift 1....Complete

My self and Captain Hero made the first of many recovery airlifts to PA this evening to drop supply's to recover our Goose.
For the most part it was uneventful though it was a very beautiful place!

new changes to writing

As my post's are being viewed by more an more people I have decided to make one small change to my writing. the changes will be changing the names of those involved.
It's is not my intention to hurt anyone's feelings or bash any person through my writing. My full intent is to provide an insight into my flying here in Alaska from my perspective and deliver these stories in a fun and entertaining way for all who read to enjoy.

Sitting Standby

Today I woke up to another very cold morning. I did not sleep well last night because it got down right cold in the apartment. some time over the Christmas break one of the boilers went out so right now we are running on one and it can't keep up with heating the entire place. I hope they get it fixed soon!
Well I'm on standby today. Dan is off doing the Chig run and they assigned me to sit here and wait while Anchorage comes up with a plan to go rescue the Goose from Lake Clark.
what ever they decide it's going to be a massive under taking and when they get it all figured out I will be flying the recovery effort up there.
Lake Clark is a massive lake in a remote area north east of King Salmon. It is nestled in the Chigmit mountain range witch is on the west side of the Cook Inlet from the Kenai Peninsula.
Until they call and tell me to fly I'm going to sit here in the apartment and try to stay warm it's -15 out right now with a wind chill of -37 burr!

My first day back

Well yesterday was my first day back flying the line and was quite the busy day. My room mate Dan and I got started well before the sun came up with temps hovering around -21. We started by pre-flighting our plane's and then sweeping the snow off the one they left out side to reduce the amount of deice fluid we would need to use. after that we got to go to OP's to get our duty assignments for the day. This gave us a brief chance to warm up before heading back out to load our plane's. In Op's we learn Captain Hero will be flying one of the run's so Dan and I basically flipped a coin to determine who had to fly with him that day. (we do this because neither one of us like flying with him) I lost! I was assigned to fly the Chig's run. (The Chig's is what we call a geographic region in Alaska made up of 3 small villages Chignik Lake, Chignik Bay, Chignik Lagoon and we include Perryville due to it being very close. The Chig's are the most beautiful and most dangerous place I have ever been to in mylife.) After I got my assignment I headed out to load my plane and then we were off. Down in the Chig's was uneventful as the weather was some what good but very cold. On the way back however was a different story. The Leg home was mine to fly and the weather had gone down at home forcing us to file and fly IFR (in the clouds on interments) wich is usually not a big deal unless you happen to be flying with Captain Hero who is useless in a multi crew environment (means two pilots sharing the work load) . As I am sitting there flying and getting annoyed that I'm getting no help from the guy sitting next to me I thought to myself well at least he hasn't started his typical rampage BS today and then I made my call to ATC witch was a simple change of frequency and let them know you did (wich I had to do myself cause someone was too busy daydreaming to even do that) and then the rampage begins!!! " I don't Like the way you talked to ATC" here we go he's trying to pick a fight again. "really you didn't like Anchorage center 208 with you level 9,000" Hero "No", me " well maybe you should work the radio's then".I think I won that battle because he worked the radio's fro the rest of the flight  wich was good because now we started our decent and were picking up ice. the rest of the flight went smooth until we were cleared for the approach. As I descend to intercept the initial approach fix Hero looks at me and said "brief your own approach" great now I have to fly and pull out the book and read all at the same time...he's worthless I swear!
Knowing it was the only way it was going to get done I fumble through the chart bag to find the right one then open it to the right page and start reading all while I have the plane screaming toward the ground to make my next altitude assignment on time. when I reach the second way point to turn inbound on the approach and line up with the runway ATC calls and tells us to hold. Just what I wanted a hold in this! We are picking up ice, it's so cold my feet are numb, I think the guy next to me is starting to drool on him self and to top it off by the smell of things I think the high decent rate caused the dog in the back to soil himself. What a day this has turned out to be! Finally ATC clears me in and what started as the biggest cluster of an approach I managed to pull off nicely and get us all on the ground safely.
When I get back to Op's I'm informed that I'm getting extended to fly another run that Dan was assigned because our one Grumman Goose ( a WWII era twin engine sea plane) made a crash landing on a frozen lake up north and Dan had to fly up there to rescue the pilot.
So off to the north I went wondering the whole time what had happened to cause the Goose to go down. the company radio channel was buzzing with chatter about it. We got reports that the pilot was the only one onboard and he was ok. Thank god!.(for those of you that don't know about the Goose, yes it is designed to land on water but not frozen water. landing on ice would be like landing on concrete runway without landing gear but a runway would be smooth and free of snowdrifts, and holes.)  He had been picked up by some people on snow machines and was being taken to the nearest village so he could be picked up.
When I get back from Dillingham the Goose pilot is sitting in Op's. Dan had gone to pick him up and brought him back home. Turns out the pilot ran the Goose out of gas, crash landed on the frozen lake and then fell through the ice when it finally came to a stop.I can't believe he ran out of gas!!! now the plane is in danger of being crushed by the refreezing ice around it on top of what ever damage was caused by the landing.

The begining

Today I finally got this blog up to keep all the folks back home up to date on whats going on with me.