Flying Wild Alaska

AEROBAT said:
I don't know what it is like now but years ago Alaska had the highest ratio of private planes per capita in the world. A lot of people enroute to Alaska stop at our strip as we have no landing fees and Jet A.
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Are landing fees common in Canada?
 
MSPAviator said:
Are landing fees common in Canada?
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It seems to be trending that way. There is an airport about 70 miles north that imposed landing fees. They finaly gave up. They would charge the aircraft by recording the transmisions on their freq. and sending them a bill in the mail but people would use call signs like "yankee doodle dandee" ect. in the circuit and they gave up.

However at the towered airports you can't get away with that.
 
flyingriki said:
Not only the cost of pizza, those folks fly all over for the a lot of seemingly simple reasons at unbelievable prices. Now I know if you live in a gawd awful place it may be necessary to go visit another town for school athletics or some of the other simple things they fly around for. But who is paying for these seemingly poor people to do these things? ERA charges hundreds of dollars per hour for these trips. How do the Eskimos pay for it? They hardly ever mention costs but when they do it's obviously very, very expensive...... :dunno:
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You are paying for it. Its called essential air service and every april 15 you get about half the bill, the other half is borrowed and your kids get to pay that.
The schools fly the students around on federal money and the mail and freight is subsidized as well. What small amount is paid by the actual users is just a fraction of the real cost.
Thank you for your generosity.


Sent from my iPad
 
mikea said:
Why do they use a Marine VHF radio for a Unicom and plane-to-plane? Do they have some more "phone call" "party call" frequencies up there?
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Most people up there have a marine radio in their house. They use it like we would use a telephone. Most folks keep a certain channel tuned all the time. If someone wants to reach that person, they know that they can call them on that channel. You hear some interesting conversations sometimes.

When flying to the villages, we would normally call our agents on the marine radio about 5 or 10 minutes out to let them know we were almost there.

flyingriki said:
Not only the cost of pizza, those folks fly all over for the a lot of seemingly simple reasons at unbelievable prices. Now I know if you live in a gawd awful place it may be necessary to go visit another town for school athletics or some of the other simple things they fly around for. But who is paying for these seemingly poor people to do these things? ERA charges hundreds of dollars per hour for these trips. How do the Eskimos pay for it? They hardly ever mention costs but when they do it's obviously very, very expensive...... :dunno:
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Aircraft are like cabs to these folks. I'm sure the rates have gone up, but we used to charge $15/seat for intervillage flights. When you landed at one village, folks would walk up to you and ask if you were going to such and such village (normally a 20 minute or less flight). If you were, and you had a seat, they would give you cash and hop on. Sometimes I'd just stop at that village if it was on my way just to get the revenue.

As far as where they get the money, in addition to the Permanent Fund Dividend that every man, woman, and child in Alaska is entitled to, the natives are also entitled to dividend checks from the native corporations. The folks up on the North Slope used to get some serious checks.

BTW... You always knew when the dividend checks were in the mail because the weather was always perfect on those days. (Anyone that's flown in Alaska will understand.)
 
That poor 207 that fell backward! I always wondered how they trim for such aft CG's, sometimes that tail looks more like a lowrider than an airplane!
 
Melting said:
You are paying for it. Its called essential air service and every April 15 you get about half the bill, the other half is borrowed and your kids get to pay that. Thank you for your generosity.
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WoW! you're welcome....I guess.....:hairraise:
I'll bet this isn't being discussed by the big deficit panel in DC. Oh, I know, just small pototoes, but they add up to our problem, don't they? :idea:
 
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flyingriki said:
WoW! you're welcome....I guess.....:hairraise:
I'll bet this isn't being discussed by the big deficit panel in DC. Oh, I know, just small pototoes, but they add up to our problem, don't they? :idea:
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RE: Essential Air Service

Actually, McCain proosed eliminating it months ago. Altho EAS is implemented over the entire US (Colorado has 3 EAS airports, IIRC) more than 60% of the funding goes to Alaska. You can look up the details at

http://ostpxweb.dot.gov/aviation/x-50 role_files/essentialairservice.htm#US
 
It occurred to me that Jim Tweeto must have told Discovery they'd do another year but they have to let Jim and Ferno run the business. We haven't seen them as much.

Ya gotta think that they drove Jim nuts with trying to stage and reshoot those trips.

Thus we get Ariel's struggle for her "pilot license" AND SHE ONLY NEEDS TO LOG 30 MORE HOURS before they just hand it to her. :lol:
 
mikea said:
It occurred to me that Jim Tweeto must have told Discovery they'd do another year but they have to let Jim and Ferno run the business. We haven't seen them as much.
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Yeah, I noticed the same thing. Too bad, Jim's stuff was the most interesting...

He seems a lot more low key this season too. I'm guessing it's due to seeing what the reality TV filter did to his operation...
 
Well...they just showed the first episode, so we got to see the first attempt to deliver the vaccines to Little Diomede, even though we already saw the 2nd successful flight.

Like I really needed to hear another 5-6 times how it's 2 miles from Russian and the vaccines are critical.

At least we did see Jim fly a few missions.

Ya get the feeling they don't give too much a sh* about content, huh?
 
Maybe the 208, with the high wings may have been a better choice of aircraft with snow banks on the sides of the runway. I guess he didn't know that when he took off though.
 
Bob Bement said:
Maybe the 208, with the high wings may have been a better choice of aircraft with snow banks on the sides of the runway. I guess he didn't know that when he took off though.
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On the earlier episode, which was taped later in real time, they did the successful delivery in the high wing with two pilots.

The stupidity is that they showed repeated clips of this prior failed attempt. :mad2:

I wonder how obvious it was that the berms were too high.

Ya gotta hand it to that pilot on the great decision making. He fought off the get-there-itis even with the critical need for the vaccines. That would be a horrible place to get stranded.
 
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I was just thinking.... too bad they couldn't just open a door and drop the box out on the runway instead of trying to land on the ice.
 
MSPAviator said:
I was just thinking.... too bad they couldn't just open a door and drop the box out on the runway instead of trying to land on the ice.
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Yeah. I thought of that the first time. I guess the stuff was too fragile, although this guy didn't even lash it down. Nothing like packing it with ice packs in Alaska.

Last season didn't Jim push out the prospectors gear before he landed?
 
MSPAviator said:
I was just thinking.... too bad they couldn't just open a door and drop the box out on the runway instead of trying to land on the ice.
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I thought that too, when I saw it. It would take something other than a Caravan to pull it off, I would think.
 
Good show. Watching on NetFlix when I'm home alone/bored. My chick doesn't really like it...
 
How about the 5 year old power plant, hanging by a thread, that nobody talkes care of? I'd bet that I could maintain it with a briefing of a few hours.

Ya think they pay well?
 
mikea said:
How about the 5 year old power plant, hanging by a thread, that nobody talkes care of? I'd bet that I could maintain it with a briefing of a few hours.

Ya think they pay well?
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Five years old is pretty new. Fuel to power it must cost a small fortune for the villagers. Perhaps they started to "temporarily" cannibalize one of the generators to keep the other two running, and kept doing that - and now it would cost another small fortune (for the villagers) to get that third one back in a runnable state?

I doubt it pays well to maintain it - but hey, you can always track them down and check!
EDIT: Pretty poor place to look for a job as generator maintenance tech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyukuk,_Alaska
 
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Jim Logajan said:
Five years old is pretty new. Fuel to power it must cost a small fortune for the villagers. Perhaps they started to "temporarily" cannibalize one of the generators to keep the other two running, and kept doing that - and now it would cost another small fortune (for the villagers) to get that third one back in a runnable state?

I doubt it pays well to maintain it - but hey, you can always track them down and check!
EDIT: Pretty poor place to look for a job as generator maintenance tech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyukuk,_Alaska
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I know. 5 years is nothing. The Alaska Energy guy was pretty disgusted on how they kept the shack - what I'm smelling is they got the power plant courtesy of some state or federal program and don't know or care enough to take care of it. That native guy didn't look real on top of things. I wonder how they even got the word out that they had no power.

It wouldn't be like a guvmint program to have lotsa cash to buy the toys but no plan to keep them going. They need to fund a crew to fly around and do the maintenance.
 
p1l0t said:
Oh did successfully suceed already?

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If Alaska were to secede, it would be hard for me not to apply for citizenship there. Enough oil to keep the new 'country' afloat for a loooooong time. Airplanes rule the roost. One of a kind hunting and fishing opportunities. Cold enough to keep the 'weak' people away.

*sigh* Wishful thinking...
 
Alaska can't become independent. The moment it does, it reverts back to Russia :D .
 
CJones said:
If Alaska were to secede, it would be hard for me not to apply for citizenship there. Enough oil to keep the new 'country' afloat for a loooooong time. Airplanes rule the roost. One of a kind hunting and fishing opportunities. Cold enough to keep the 'weak' people away.

*sigh* Wishful thinking...
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See how far that oil money goes when Alaska has to pay for their own bridges to nowhere, and the other subsidies go away.
 
mikea said:
It occurred to me that Jim Tweeto must have told Discovery they'd do another year but they have to let Jim and Ferno run the business. We haven't seen them as much.

Ya gotta think that they drove Jim nuts with trying to stage and reshoot those trips.

Thus we get Ariel's struggle for her "pilot license" AND SHE ONLY NEEDS TO LOG 30 MORE HOURS before they just hand it to her. :lol:
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OMG I know. I keep thinking "When is someone going to tell her it is all about the PTS standards, and how well you can perform them?!"

And not "after 40 hours you're done".

Of course this may be since I took 90 hours and I will be P-I-S-S-E-D if a pilot who didn't even know the names of the instruments gets her license in the minimum time.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
OMG I know. I keep thinking "When is someone going to tell her it is all about the PTS standards, and how well you can perform them?!"

And not "after 40 hours you're done".

Of course this may be since I took 90 hours and I will be P-I-S-S-E-D if a pilot who didn't even know the names of the instruments gets her license in the minimum time.
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It may work out for her if Dad is also the DPE. :goofy:

Somehow I don't think even Jim would foist Ariel on the world if she wasn't ready. Pons is saying that she's getting some of it.

I wonder how a CFI in Alaska feels singing off a student when all they may have to land on in a panic is an icy river. At least out here in the flatlands they know we have lotsa fields to use.
 
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mikea said:
See how far that oil money goes when Alaska has to pay for their own bridges to nowhere, and the other subsidies go away.
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Well it goes like this, If they didn't have stupid senators trying to bribe the voters with there own money that wouldn't happen.
 
Has anyone else noticed that Ariel Tweeto has the title of "Executive Producer" on the show? And, as far as her getting her license goes, remember that she is learning in a 207. Not a typical trainer aircraft! In other words, me'thinks that they have a little bit of creative editing going on here! Whodathunk? Heck, I'd be impressed if she got her certificate in less than 80 hours, with that plane! Her advatntage is that she doesn't need to handle a lot of Class B (or other high traffic density) traffic!
 
gprellwitz said:
Has anyone else noticed that Ariel Tweeto has the title of "Executive Producer" on the show? And, as far as her getting her license goes, remember that she is learning in a 207. Not a typical trainer aircraft! In other words, me'thinks that they have a little bit of creative editing going on here! Whodathunk? Heck, I'd be impressed if she got her certificate in less than 80 hours, with that plane! Her advatntage is that she doesn't need to handle a lot of Class B (or other high traffic density) traffic!
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Why? The first couples of lessons would be harder, but it's not rocket science. One of the guys around here used a Cherokee 235 he bought.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
weilke said:
Alaska can't become independent. The moment it does, it reverts back to Russia :D .
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Well to revert it would have to become Canadian.. well I guess it depends on how far back in history. Either way I think the U.S. would still defend Alaska from Russia even as a free state for the same reasons *cough* oil. (If the U.S. government isn't aready bankrupted by then)

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p1l0t said:
(If the U.S. government isn't aready bankrupted by then)
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Haven't you heard? the Democrats will borrow enough money to get us out of debt.

that should put this thread away :)
 
p1l0t said:
Well to revert it would have to become Canadian.. well I guess it depends on how far back in history. Either way I think the U.S. would still defend Alaska from Russia even as a free state for the same reasons *cough* oil. (If the U.S. government isn't aready bankrupted by then)

<---<^>--->
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Dumb question time: Was there really something in the "Seward's Folly" purchase treaty that says Alaska would go back to the Russians?

Doh! We made the deal with the TZAR, not dem godless commie b*tards.
 
mikea said:
Thus we get Ariel's struggle for her "pilot license" AND SHE ONLY NEEDS TO LOG 30 MORE HOURS before they just hand it to her. :lol:
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This is Alaska who needs a "license":D
 
mikea said:
Dumb question time: Was there really something in the "Seward's Folly" purchase treaty that says Alaska would go back to the Russians?
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No, it was a joke.

The only places that could 'secede' are the ones that were some sort of entity before becoming states. The colonies, California and maybe texas. The rest, like Alaska were possessions of the federal goverment before they were turned into states.
 
weilke said:
No, it was a joke.

The only places that could 'secede' are the ones that were some sort of entity before becoming states. The colonies, California and maybe texas. The rest, like Alaska were possessions of the federal goverment before they were turned into states.
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So why didn't the robber barons just annex BC from those wimps in Canada so we could achieve the "manifest destiny" of making Alaska contiguous? :idea:
 
When I first started my flying lessons, I had the same problem with that damn throttle knob. I was also in the fire dept. and on the pump control you pulled out the throttle to make the engine go faster. I had to stop and think on the airplane. I like the show, I don't know why I identify with some of their flying and landing sites. :confused: :wink2:
 
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