March 2003 - Southwestern Alaska

I sit quietly in my room. It is dark and cold outside, lows into the teens – it gets that way pretty early in March in Alaska! Having just returned from Baffin Island in the Arctic outer-reaches of northeastern Canada, I wonder why we “Bush Pilots” always have to fly in the Artic in winter? Why couldn’t we come in, like, August? I could bring the family along, they could sightsee while I was “working”, hauling Sterno Stoves, Can Openers, Fishing Gear and Australians all over Tarnation. I certainly can’t complain about the scenery, Sikta and Valdez – some of the most beautiful and dramatic views in the world (Well, in the western world anyway)


I close my eyes and listen to the music coming from my computer – listening to my brother-in-law’s radio station live at: www.plr.org . I drift off toward sleep only to be awakened by the phone’s, “Riiing, Riiing”


“Hollow? Uh huh. Yes. SARDINES!?! You’re kidding me. First thing tomorrow? Okay, I’ll be there before lunchJ Thanks.”


“Dammit.” Tony would throw something like this at us. “Urgently needed sardines”, he says, for what, their pizzas, their cannery? Why would anyone need sardines, “urgently”? Personally, I don’t believe him. I think it’s just a ploy to get us started early. Ugh, I think I can smell them already – and in my brand new plane too. “SHOOT!” I swear I’m gonna fly with the windows open. That’s what Hans would do!


I struggle to get some sleep but the thoughts haunt me. I dream that I’m trying to run, hips-deep in sardines, slipping, falling, sliming. Ugh!


I get up before dawn, wrap my parka around tightly and make my way out to the little airport at Sitka. I load up Real Weather and fire up the Twin Otter, crank the heaters on and pick up my morning papers. I am taxiing by a little after 6 AM and I depart southward before 06:15. A climbing right-hand turn and I pick up my route to PAYA, just a hair over 200 miles. Traffic is light and just as I begin my set-up for landing into Yakutat, I am treated to a very nice virtual sunrise. I overfly the airport at 4,500 ft, go 5 miles out, procedure turn while descending (See Pict1) and land, long but verrrrry smoooooth on runway 11. It is now just past 07:33 and I taxi over to the fueling area, park and shut down.


Only then do I load up Tony’s “Briefing Packet” and learn that my departure time isn’t for another 4 hours! “Why the ____ did I get up so early?” I unload my light cargo, fuel up, review my flightplans and download the latest weather updates (I’ll fly with Tony’s weather package). I look up all of my frequencies and headings and write a little kneepad cheatsheet to use while I’m airborne.
Next I stroll over to the little FBO to look for some food and maybe some local information. “Oh” the man there says, “you mean Icky Bay!” “Icky?”


“Yup, rough strip, and watch out’fer game on the field. Just last month some guy up from Orey Gone crashed up his Caribou!”


“Game on the field? Caribou? Like in Reindeer?” Visions filled my head:



http://www.piersystem.com/external/final_View.cfm?pressID=9861&CID=51



“No man, like he tore the nose clean off his plane. It was real bad. You have to be careful flyin’ up here. It ain’t like flying other places.”


“Ain’t?” Was I in Alaska or Alabama? This was getting too weird, so I asked if there were a TV around, figuring I’d catch a bit of the Iditerod action.


“Nope. Ain’t no TV fer miles ‘round. Got me a good little radio though.”
“Ummmm, no thanks. How about some food?”
“Salmon Jerky?”
“Naw. Thanks anyway."
“Moose Jerky? Dried Seal fat?”
"I’m gonna go rest for awhile, full day ahead you know.” I turn to leave.
“Musk ox?” He calls after me. “Canned Tuna?”


I turn back, I felt I had to say something. “Sir, you don’t have any fruit do you?” He looked at me cautiously, with a certain distrust, “Y’all ain’t from ‘round here is ya?” “No. Nor are you I surmise.” “Well, me grandparents come over from Ireland and settled down south fer a’piece. Then me mama and papa come up into Canada, Aiy? Then I met me old lady and we…..” I interrupt. “Sir, I really need to go now. Thanks for your help.” “Gotta Go Aiy? Well, you know what they say, ‘When ya gotta go, you GOTTA go!’ hee hee hee hee, S*** house is out back.” “Riiiiight. Thanks.”


I leave the boxes of Sardines beside the plane and stretch out in the cargo area for what I hope to be a little nap. Not five minutes later the little man from the FBO is back, looking in on me. “Nice little plane ya got here feller. Where’d ya find’er?” “Barry Blaisdell” “Now, where in the hell is….?” “Internet. You know, COMPUTERS?” I’m becoming frustrated now. Frustrated by the fact that it’s cold, I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m a few hundred miles away from the nearest Starbuck’s! “Oh, I guess maybe you wouldn’t know about that huh?”


“Computers? Hell yeah, I got me a Commodore 64 we use at home. I tell you, man, this modern technology is somethin’ ain’t it? Computers right there in the home now. Did you ever imagine back in 1967 when they put a man on the moon that them room-sized computers would ever get so small that they could fit right into your house? What next, some ‘lap-sized’ job I suppose?” “Could you excuse me?” I ask, “I need to make a call.” “W’sure. Whatever fer?” “I need to check in with ‘Headquarters’.” I pull out my Palm-Pilot and plug it into my cell phone and send a quick note to tony@toomuchfs.com: “Dear Sir, Please be advised that this is my LAST “Bush Pilot” gig for awhile! Good Day, Ron.” “What the hell kind-of-a-gadget is that?”
“A computer. A computer and a little, teeny, tiny, itty-bitty PHONE! And it has just told me that it’s time to load up and leave.”
“How’d it tell you all that?”

I roll my eyes and sigh, “Sir, this is confidential, government information (I look suspiciously around knowing that there isn’t another human who’d want to be anywhere around) but, I know of a guy, named Bill Smith….he actually turned INTO A COMPUTER!” (I thought about calling Hans for a quick run-down on the habits of The Borg but my host seemed shocked enough so I let it be.)


My ploy worked and my little host staggered back into his shack. He left me alone after that. (Only days later did I learn that Bill Smith himself had been at this very airport looking for “Hippies” just a few days prior. Poor guy must’ve had a little stroke when I told him that story!) Finally, mercifully, 11:30 AM, comes. I get the “Sardines” loaded up and I taxi back out to runway 11. I get clearance and advance the throttles at 11:45 and begin rolling out. I follow Tony’s directions, 70 miles out, and turn into Icky, errrr, I mean Icy Bay at 12:20-something. On short final I notice the crumpled heaps of a couple different planes near the runway (See Pict2: Tony’s left; Peter’s right), “Must be that Oregonian I’d heard about.” Trying not to look at the carnage below, I continued my approach. I was a bit high and began slipping in when something, far down the strip, near Peter’s crumpled heap, caught my eye. (Look very carefully at the screenshot and you may see the gaping pothole he left for me in the middle of the strip!) “What the….?” I push the throttles forward, raise a couple notches of flaps and go missed. As I skim over the runway at about 45 feet I scan the surface, marking that big hole near the smashed remains of the second Caribou to die an “Icy Death” in the past month. I fly a left-hand pattern at 1,200 ft and come in again.


(You know, in FS2000 I used this handy little wind speed gauge on all my panels. It told me the speed and direction of the wind so that I could compensate for it. And I could NEVER land on the centerline. Now, in FS2002 I do NOT have this gauge and I just fly to the strip, don’t even notice the wind. Does that mean I’m becoming a better pilot?)


I come in slow, hanging on the props to perform one of my now-famous….”Kangaroo-Hop” landings. I come in low and slow, just hanging about 20 feet above the runway, then I chop the throttles and release any back-pressure on the stick. I drop like a rock at which time I yank back hard, just as the wheels mash into the ground. The resulting BOUNCE hops me right over the pothole and slams me down hard on the other side. (Like I meant to do that J) Hard braking and I skid to a stop at the end of the gravel. Hey, at least all of my wheels are still attached to the plane! Differential throttle and braking pivots me around and I bump and grind over to the parking area. It is now 12:37 PM.


After an hour on the ground at Icy Bay I depart from runway 05 again, getting airborne before “The Hole”. It’s about 13:30 local time as I make my right turn and almost immediately I can pick up the JOH VOR. I dial up the 257° radial and have a 140-some-odd-mile ride in to Cordova. (See Pict3, Taken as I bump along about 60 DME from the VOR)


I take the shorter route in, before the hills and I gotta say, it is one beautiful area! (See Pict4 taken on Base Leg) Although, what’s with the airport in the middle of the wash-out? Isn’t that asking for some flooding or an ice flow or something to come wipe out the whole thing? At any rate, landing is uneventful at 14:34. Well, uneventful other than in real life it was 9:30 PM and I was getting our two year-old to sleep by holding him – you know, that lulling sound of the turboprops? So, I was working on my full AP, non-ILS, uncoupled approach…Hold the kid on your left shoulder, rocking him a bit, while you adjust heading and rate of descent on AP with your right hand, throttles held at stall + 30%. At 100 ft AGL your ROD is about 50 ft/min, you can cut throttles and glide right down on AP, the kid never even stirs around!


I spend about 90 minutes at Cordova, firing up the engines at 15:55 for the last hop into Valdez. I depart runway 05 at 16:00, fly to the JOH VOR and then into the bay of Valdez. WOW, this is some scenery huh? I’ve flown into here in real life but it was soooo long ago….I really don’t know why I haven’t flown FS here more often? After reading Peter’s PIREP it looked like the ILS offset was a bit too offset for the end of a long day, so I flew direct to the NDB and then turned in. (Last Picture is heading into the NDB, ‘bout 10 miles DME on the ILS) I knew that Bill would expect a landing ON the centerline so that was my focus here. Good News: Hit the centerline; Didn’t crash; Touch down at IAS of about 65-70 so stopping was no problem. Bad News: Landed halfway down the strip; Landed Right main-wheel first. I parked at the fueling area at 16:50 and shut her down for the last time today.


All-in-all, this flight provided some good variety, ILS, DMEs, rough gravel strips, a little light chop up through 9,500 ft, and breathtaking scenery. That part was fun! Being cold and having to deal with that clod at Yakutat I could’ve done without but hey, it’s all pretend…Isn’t it?