Originally Posted by SkyHigh

I use to work for real Alaskan Bush operators. Completely isolated, most of our operations were off airport. We were able to frequent asphalt runways maybe twice a month. Our cross countries were commonly 200 plus miles across mountain ranges and over totally uninhibited wilderness. On the beach there were no rampers to load the plane and tell me the actual weight of cargo and there were not any at my home base either. Weather reporting was sparse and inaccurate as it is today. I was pointless to even get a wx brief since the information was so bad. Even today if your were to tell your boss on the ramp at Bethel that you weren't going since the WX report forecasts a 40% chance of snow they would tell you to pack your bags. It has nothing to do with safety but more of what the job requires. If you were to wait till the FSS gives you a VFR forecast then the villages would have starved by then. Flying from Haynes to JNU doesn't really count as bush flying. SE AK has its challenges but flying up and down Lynn Canal might as well be an interstate. Plenty of pireps, asphalt runways and village wx reporting. Not the same at all.

SKyHigh