AlaskaAV
GONE WEST
Mission, TX
Hopefully this will not get into a political argument so I will not name which political party did what. If you want to take it into politics, take it to rant and rave.
At a point, there was a political convention in Iowa and trying to do something special to attract attention, a group of people out of the Anchorage area went to Portage, south of Anchorage and chopped off a huge chunk of the beautiful blue ice Portage Glacier. No comment if it was legal or not. Once that was done, a very reliable helicopter company operating out of the Lake Hood area sent in either a Bell 206, as I recall, or a Bell 205, dropped a sling and net whereupon divers in the glacier lake attached it around the chunk of ice. It was than flown in to the Anchorage airport as a sling load and dropped off at an airline that was to fly it to the lower 48 almost immediately. I am a little confused at that point. I have heard the aircraft flew the ice all the way to Iowa but there were no scheduled routes there so maybe it was transferred to another carrier. Either way, it got to Iowa for the convention and was used as ice for cocktails at happy hour. Lots of Alaska signs all over the place about the special ice so I heard. I often wondered how much that cost but who am I to worry about it? After all, it was private money and aviation made money. In the lower 48, the same thing could have been done but they would have used big rig trucks, not big iron aircraft. Still, it was interesting to have seen things like that go on in my life.
Special Lear Jet flights to fly a young swan (or other birds) south because they were late in leaving the north slope. Happened lots of times but it was oil company jets and money. Normally, they hid it because they didn't want the publicity but they still did it. I had heard that once in the air, the feds (ATC and Centers) changed their call sign to Swan Flight XXXs(tail number) but than again, I could be wrong but doubt it. My sources were always accurate.
Not the same as the ultra lights that led the way for the geese to fly south on the east coast of course. Our trips out of Alaska were more like 5,000 miles one way. They never flew them back up of course, one way only.
At a point, there was a political convention in Iowa and trying to do something special to attract attention, a group of people out of the Anchorage area went to Portage, south of Anchorage and chopped off a huge chunk of the beautiful blue ice Portage Glacier. No comment if it was legal or not. Once that was done, a very reliable helicopter company operating out of the Lake Hood area sent in either a Bell 206, as I recall, or a Bell 205, dropped a sling and net whereupon divers in the glacier lake attached it around the chunk of ice. It was than flown in to the Anchorage airport as a sling load and dropped off at an airline that was to fly it to the lower 48 almost immediately. I am a little confused at that point. I have heard the aircraft flew the ice all the way to Iowa but there were no scheduled routes there so maybe it was transferred to another carrier. Either way, it got to Iowa for the convention and was used as ice for cocktails at happy hour. Lots of Alaska signs all over the place about the special ice so I heard. I often wondered how much that cost but who am I to worry about it? After all, it was private money and aviation made money. In the lower 48, the same thing could have been done but they would have used big rig trucks, not big iron aircraft. Still, it was interesting to have seen things like that go on in my life.
Special Lear Jet flights to fly a young swan (or other birds) south because they were late in leaving the north slope. Happened lots of times but it was oil company jets and money. Normally, they hid it because they didn't want the publicity but they still did it. I had heard that once in the air, the feds (ATC and Centers) changed their call sign to Swan Flight XXXs(tail number) but than again, I could be wrong but doubt it. My sources were always accurate.
Not the same as the ultra lights that led the way for the geese to fly south on the east coast of course. Our trips out of Alaska were more like 5,000 miles one way. They never flew them back up of course, one way only.
