Flying

Alaska has the most pilots per capita in the United States.

I am one of them, although I am not active.

It was back in the mid 90’s that I decided I wanted a private pilot’s license. I flew for several years but then all of a sudden I stopped.

Fishing got in the way.

In my world, when it’s a good day to fly it’s an even better day to go fishing.

Several of my neighbor’s are pilots and are very passionate about it. They’ve invited me to go flying with them, but it seems like our schedules would never line up.

That changed on Thursday. With an early spring and great weather, I was able to fly around the Kenai peninsula with my neighbor Greg.

Just after sunrise, we took off from the Soldotna airport. The conditions couldn’t have been more perfect. Greg asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to see and my reply was the river, of course. 

We headed east and followed the Kenai River to Skilak Lake. Not only was the main stem of the river free of ice, so were the tributaries. Definitely an early spring. 

After we followed the river, Greg turned the plane west and four of the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire came into view. The first is Mt. Spurr, which is extremely active right now, then Mt. Redoubt, Mt. Iliamna, and St. Augustine.

A side note. Several friends have asked about the recent activity of Mt. Spurr and the threat it poses. My honest answer is the ash fallout is the only danger from an eruption and it’s the wind direction that will determine the impact. Volcanic ash fallout, which contains silica, can be both a respiratory and a material hazard, especially on combustible engines.

Back to our flight. One thing that has changed a lot since I piloted a plane is technology. The dashboard of the Cessna 150/172 I flew had gauges, knobs, and a compass. As you can see on the dashboard of Greg’s Cessna 170, it has all of that plus video screens and a GPS.  

Besides technological innovations in the cockpit, outside the plane things have changed as well. When I got home Greg sent me a screenshot from an app that tracked our flight path. What an incredible useful tool for a private pilot. The green line in the photo above represents where we flew.

It sure was fun flying on Thursday and I enjoyed my time in the air. If you ask me if I would want to pilot a plane again my answer would be no. It’s better to leave the skies to the people who have more passion for flying than I do.