AlaskaAV
09-07-2004, 12:28 AM
I often traveled around our system in Alaska as relief station manager. One such station was King Salmon where I spent some 30 days. The assigned station manager had trained his team so well that actually there was nothing for me to do really other than PR. It was always such fun for me to travel around the system and see how different managers ran their stations. Sometimes it was to check up on or audit someone but most of the time just to get the manager off on vacation or do some training on new equipment.
This flight out of King Salmon is an example.
In the area on a fishing trip in the Katmai area were three Vice Presidents with United Airlines assigned to Honolulu who were trying to get back home and due to a late arrival at King Salmon on our flight, it looked like they would not connect. They weren't really worried though but I am sure they would have liked to get back home.
Inbound load: three full igloos probably 6500 pounds each. I forget the passenger load but the average would have been around 45 (56 seats available). Heavy belly load of cargo, mail and baggage.
Outbound: three igloos probably empty, maybe 40-45 passengers and baggage and mail in the front belly.
To make the connecting flight in Anchorage, the crew had to turn the aircraft around in less than 20 minutes and with very little ground equipment available.
The entire crew had everything planned out and I offered to be where ever needed, passenger checkin, security, offloading/loading baggage, etc. Shoot, if you have a great crew, why try to change anything and screw it up? At some point near departure time, I got to spend a little time with the VPs, three really great guys.
Needless to say, the crew made that departure and the flight did connect in Anchorage.
It was about a week or so later that I got a letter from the VPs stating something like "what a fantastic ground crew. Even with all our personnel in Honolulu and millions of dollars in ground equipment, we could not have accomplished what your ground crew did in 20 minutes to make sure we connected to our flight".
The first thing I did was make a copy for everyone and posted the original on the bulletin board with a note from me. "This letter was missent to me. It should have been addressed to all of you. Thanks guys and gals."
It was always so great to work with a team like that. So many stations didn't have all the good equipment and everyone made do with what they had.
I know for a fact that there are many GA aircraft maintenance/fabracators in the Anchorage and Wasilla areas that have employee groups just like that and probably better and we all know who they are. One just donated a great aircraft last weekend.
I have already commented about John Denver being in the area at the time and of course Jack Lemon. Because of the fantastic fishing, there were a lot of corporate aircraft that came in and out.
One corporate BAC 111 came in, dropped everyone (maybe 20 or so) off and we flew them back into the lakes to our fish camps with our recip Mallard. Once everyone was gone, the flight crew ferried the aircraft on to Anchorage to wait until called for. As luck would have it, there was a company emergency and one person had to fly back to Calif so the aircraft was called back and one person was flown home to work the problem out. The aircraft was back in Anchorage the next day to wait until called again.
There is a very large construction company, Bechtel, that does business world wide.
Mr. Bechtel, a great guy to talk to so I found out, had his own personal Lear Jet which I want to call a model 36 but could be wrong. He set it up for 4 seats but the area could have taken 8 seats. As I recall, he didn't have an inflight attendant. This was around the mid 70s. The Captain took me on board after he made sure his boss was comfortable on our Mallard. What a cockpit. We spent a lot of time over coffee telling stories but never a cool one because he had to be ready to fly immediately. What an aircraft and very few were built. I was told that Mr. Bechtel told the chief pilot (the guy I was talking to) when they started talking about a new aircraft that he would decide what went in behind the bulkhead and it was up to the pilot to design the cockpit, cost not important. Remember, this was the personal aircraft of Mr. Bechtel, not a company aircraft used by others. At the time, that Lear had everything in the cockpit that Air Force One did except for one radio. In that day and age, the pilot was able to tell exactly where they were within feet and that was before GPS. The engines were huge and very fuel conservative for a Lear and I had never seen any that big before and lots of Lears came into King Salmon.
On one flight from Australia to Wichita, Ks, it could have used JFK as alternate plus 45 minutes. That aircraft had held many records in it's day. This all due to the new type engine. Normal cruise was above FL 45.
So many other corporate jets but those two I really remember.
When our 737s came in, I always invited the Bechtel crew over to meet our flight crews and usually he took them over to look at "his" aircraft. He told me later that was quite a thing for him to meet really down to earth drivers that were so nice and kind of like the bush pilots he had heard so much about even though they were driving 737s. Just part of being in aviation in Alaska I guess. He couldn't do that in LAX or SFO and probably anywhere else in the world they flew.
This flight out of King Salmon is an example.
In the area on a fishing trip in the Katmai area were three Vice Presidents with United Airlines assigned to Honolulu who were trying to get back home and due to a late arrival at King Salmon on our flight, it looked like they would not connect. They weren't really worried though but I am sure they would have liked to get back home.
Inbound load: three full igloos probably 6500 pounds each. I forget the passenger load but the average would have been around 45 (56 seats available). Heavy belly load of cargo, mail and baggage.
Outbound: three igloos probably empty, maybe 40-45 passengers and baggage and mail in the front belly.
To make the connecting flight in Anchorage, the crew had to turn the aircraft around in less than 20 minutes and with very little ground equipment available.
The entire crew had everything planned out and I offered to be where ever needed, passenger checkin, security, offloading/loading baggage, etc. Shoot, if you have a great crew, why try to change anything and screw it up? At some point near departure time, I got to spend a little time with the VPs, three really great guys.
Needless to say, the crew made that departure and the flight did connect in Anchorage.
It was about a week or so later that I got a letter from the VPs stating something like "what a fantastic ground crew. Even with all our personnel in Honolulu and millions of dollars in ground equipment, we could not have accomplished what your ground crew did in 20 minutes to make sure we connected to our flight".
The first thing I did was make a copy for everyone and posted the original on the bulletin board with a note from me. "This letter was missent to me. It should have been addressed to all of you. Thanks guys and gals."
It was always so great to work with a team like that. So many stations didn't have all the good equipment and everyone made do with what they had.
I know for a fact that there are many GA aircraft maintenance/fabracators in the Anchorage and Wasilla areas that have employee groups just like that and probably better and we all know who they are. One just donated a great aircraft last weekend.
I have already commented about John Denver being in the area at the time and of course Jack Lemon. Because of the fantastic fishing, there were a lot of corporate aircraft that came in and out.
One corporate BAC 111 came in, dropped everyone (maybe 20 or so) off and we flew them back into the lakes to our fish camps with our recip Mallard. Once everyone was gone, the flight crew ferried the aircraft on to Anchorage to wait until called for. As luck would have it, there was a company emergency and one person had to fly back to Calif so the aircraft was called back and one person was flown home to work the problem out. The aircraft was back in Anchorage the next day to wait until called again.
There is a very large construction company, Bechtel, that does business world wide.
Mr. Bechtel, a great guy to talk to so I found out, had his own personal Lear Jet which I want to call a model 36 but could be wrong. He set it up for 4 seats but the area could have taken 8 seats. As I recall, he didn't have an inflight attendant. This was around the mid 70s. The Captain took me on board after he made sure his boss was comfortable on our Mallard. What a cockpit. We spent a lot of time over coffee telling stories but never a cool one because he had to be ready to fly immediately. What an aircraft and very few were built. I was told that Mr. Bechtel told the chief pilot (the guy I was talking to) when they started talking about a new aircraft that he would decide what went in behind the bulkhead and it was up to the pilot to design the cockpit, cost not important. Remember, this was the personal aircraft of Mr. Bechtel, not a company aircraft used by others. At the time, that Lear had everything in the cockpit that Air Force One did except for one radio. In that day and age, the pilot was able to tell exactly where they were within feet and that was before GPS. The engines were huge and very fuel conservative for a Lear and I had never seen any that big before and lots of Lears came into King Salmon.
On one flight from Australia to Wichita, Ks, it could have used JFK as alternate plus 45 minutes. That aircraft had held many records in it's day. This all due to the new type engine. Normal cruise was above FL 45.
So many other corporate jets but those two I really remember.
When our 737s came in, I always invited the Bechtel crew over to meet our flight crews and usually he took them over to look at "his" aircraft. He told me later that was quite a thing for him to meet really down to earth drivers that were so nice and kind of like the bush pilots he had heard so much about even though they were driving 737s. Just part of being in aviation in Alaska I guess. He couldn't do that in LAX or SFO and probably anywhere else in the world they flew.