Bush Flying

By Lex, on August 11, 2010

I suspect that it’s many a pilot’s dream to fly the Alaskan Bush. The harsh nature of the climate comes with spectacular beauty, and merely navigating from one spot to another carries unique challenges in a region where navaids are rare and communications with air traffic control even rarer. I imagine that it is inspiring, and liberating and exhilarating. I also imagine that it can be more than a little hair raising. I know a guy flew Tomcats and Hornets for 25 years off the carrier who retired to fly the Alaskan Bush. After a year of scaring the hell out himself, he came back to California, and now teaches high school math. The money’s about the same, but the chance of augering in is vastly reduced. Which doesn’t mean that a secret part of me doesn’t want to give it a spin.

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex