SkyHigh

I am sure that there are guys and gals at AS who are from Penair However that doesn't mean that they will be picked up in the future. Times have changed at significantly since three years ago. Back in 2000 AS was the bottom of the barrel as far as majors went. Who wanted to work for AS at half the pay of a career at AA or UAL? In the interview process one of the questions that HR would ask was "why would you want to work here over DAL"? AS was much less picky back then. The cream of the industry right now has its eye on UPS, FedEx and AS. Today AS has Blue Angles and 29 year old RJ captains in ground school. Soon they will have possibly a pile of NWA MD80 Captains lined up at the front door. Flying a Caravan out of Dillingham wouldn't even cause a moment of pause before they toss the app in the no pile. My aim isn't to cause alarm or discontent but think about it a little. I wouldn't sit in a Cherokee 6 on the ramp at King Salmon and be confident that I am on my way to Alaska Airlines if I were you. Times have changed.

I don't know what equipment you fly for Penair or where your base is. A turbine FO out of ANC is pretty safe, but the deep bush is a different matter. In addition Alaska Airtaxi is like a boiling pot. Things are good for a while after a string of accidents but then competition moves in and the tension causes standards to slip and people begin to get killed. Even now statistics rate a rural Alaskan Cessna pilot as the most dangerous job in the country. Just because you haven't happened upon the wreckage of a college yet doesn't mean that the risk isn't there. These things are played out over long periods of time. Complacency and bad luck are a slow process. They say that the odds of being involved in a fatal accident as a bush pilot in AK reaches 100% after 20 years. Alaskan Aviation has been hailed as a industry run mostly by women. The reason for that is because the husbands who started the business was killed in a crash years prior.

You know that you are in danger when you start thinking that you have it licked and that nothing bad will happen.

SkyHigh

SkyHigh

AK Pilots,

I hate to continue pouring in more bad news but I have done a bit more thinking and would like to add some more. I don't know what your career goals are but if your dreams include an airline career I can tell you from experience that it is a very difficult conversion from Alaskan 135 to the rest of the aviation world. In your minds I know that you are proud of your accomplishments in Alaska and feel good about the experience that you are building but I hate to say it but most of it is worthless to the outside world. Even as a 121 turbine Captain in AK you are at a competitive disadvantage in today's market. It is frustrating since you realize the efforts that you have put forth to get to this point only to realize that no one outside of Alaska gets it at all. It is kind of like being the football hero in High School and advance to college as just another co-ed at the bottom of the pile. At best you will gain admission to a regional as a new hire to enjoy starting all over again. In the current aviation environment the only thing that matters are good contacts and 121 Jet PIC. In Alaska you can't really get either. You might as well throw away your log books since the only time that will buy you anything is as a 121 turbine or jet captain and the turbine part is fading fast. What would you have to offer a jet airtaxi or corporate flight department? Do you have any jet time? Have you flown much glass cockpits? Do you have any crew experience? How many type ratings do you have? What about flying in dense airspace environments? To most companies you might as well have been mowing the lawn for the last few years since Caravan time is just as useless. (however during lawn mowing you would have a better chance of meeting wealthy airline pilots)

In conclusion if your dreams are to fly corporate jets or for the airlines then you had better take a hard look at what I have said. In the end you will probably have to bite the bullet and take a humiliating job as a new hire at some regional or crummy turbine lower 48 airtaxi. Sitting in ground school with people who only have a few hundred hours and effectively starting all over again. And the longer you wait the harder it will be. I am not trying to burst your bubble but to pass on some painful lessons that my friends and I have had to learn.

Fire Away,

SkyHigh

lzakplt

Nothing has changed? How do you know that? Some of your information is outdated. Some was never correct. In most places 1000 & 5 is quite safe and very legal. (500 & 2 or 1000 & 1 are our day VFR mins.) The old small crappy runways (at least in southwest AK) are being phased out. There are more WX reporting stations. Lots of podunk airports are currently served by GPS approaches. As far as your boss's reaction to your decisions about when not to fly, in many ways that comes right back to you. Have you chosen to work for a sketchy operator? Is your backbone sufficiently weak that you are going to stay with that operator and be allow yourself to be pressured to risk your life? You just cited 3 airlines that you say can afford more safety. Why not go work for one of them then? By the way, there are plenty more airlines which do not operate in the old "bush pilot" mentality.

Sure there are challenging decisions regularly. If you are a poor decision maker, you shouldn't be a pilot. Your old airlines like to continue wrecking planes? There is an interesting relationship between an airline's hiring standards and their frequency of bent metal.

lzakplt

121 PIC experieince with in state carriers will get you an AS interview, when King Air out of Barrow might not.

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

SkyHigh

It might have a few years ago but I wouldn't bank on it today. A few might interview and get hired but it will be because of the contacts and not the experience. Do a little digging and you will most likely find a father or well placed uncle in the background.

SkyHigh

lzakplt

Excuse me, SkyHigh. I didn't know you are an ex-Real Alaskan Bush Pilot. You either need to proofread or think more. Or get a map. Who brought SE Alaska up. I said Southwest. Try opening a set of Alaskan approach plates to see how things have changed. As I'm sure you know, Bethel is where many start their Alaska flying, ie, its full of newbies. I see why they didn't like you, if you tried to stay home when it snowed. Wilderness, ooohh, scarry. No rampers, oh my poor aching back. Does this box weigh 10 or 100 pounds? I just can't tell.

SkyHigh

Good for you!! Perhaps you have some merit after all. What kind of plane what base?

Besides what good does an approach do for a 207? How is a Super cub suppose to benefit from ATC when they never get higher than 300' and don't have a transponder? What good is a GPS when you are flying 100' or less above the ground? What good is an ATC system when the 135 minimums are legally lower than an ILS Approach? (Special VFR 1 mile and clear of clouds.) I remember standing on the ramp with some pax while waiting for an Alaska Airlines flight to arrive at Dillingham that had to miss all the while Penair planes were coming and going via Special VFR. Try explaining that to lower 48 pax.

Man they liked me up there. I went out there and did the job. I was trying to make a point regarding your safety comments. If you were to closely adhere to the rules nothing would ever get done in AK. Maybe you should read a little closer as well?

SkyHigh

lzakplt

I fly IFR Caravans, IFR Navajos & VFR Saratogas for PenAir in Dillingham. If we don't have VFR weather, we go IFR. Pretty straight forward. I use GPS approaches all the time. It's the difference of fighting weather from departure to destination, and easily cruising along in the clouds, until the MAP, then landing or going home. If you want to talk about flying around at 100', that's not (for the most part) legal part 135 flying, nor is it smart. I now understand why your ex-coworkers at airlines with such standards have a high mortality rate. If you want to make up your own rules, you will have problems. 99% of the time, if I can't get in on an ILS, I'm not out there flying VFR. (Maybe 1% of the time the approach end of an 8000' runway is foggy, but I can still get in VFR in the middle of the runway.) We do a pretty good job of following the rules. As a result, we do sit out some weather days. As you know, Dillingham has no ILS.

Did you fly here? For whom? Depending on how long you've been gone, you might be interested to hear Koliganek, Ekwok, Leavelok, Clark's Point & Egegik have new runways. New Stuyahok's is under construction. Koliganek & Egegik have AWOS's and GPS approaches.

SkyHigh

I flew out of Iliamna for IAT in the early 90's. Back then Penair only had cherokee 6's, navajos and a few metroliners. Everyone mostly flew VRF. After that I flew out of McGrath Galena and ANC for various 135 operators before I was able to escape the state.

SkyHigh