Dog Days in Alaska

Flying with the bush pilots of the Iditarod

(published April 2008 in AOPA Pilot)

photos by Tom LeCompte unless otherwise noted

Pilot Mike Petrie is picking his way down a narrow mountain pass, maneuvering his Cessna 180 about 500 feet above an ice-covered river bed. Rugged cliffs rise sharply off the wings – close enough to touch it seems – and winds of up to 70 mph at 4,000 feet MSL roil over the mountaintops and batter the plane. Bright sunshine beams overhead, but visibility ahead has been reduced to little more than a mile by a heavy veil of blowing snow. Petrie can still navigate by GPS, but there’s no need. He’s flown this pass hundreds of times and knows every rock, every tree along the route. Tall and burly, with a menacing-looking goatee and a shaggy mane of hair, Petrie looks like a character straight out of the movie Bush Pilot. He turns to check on his passengers in back of the plane. A frisky blond and brown Alaskan husky looks up inquisitively. Petrie gives the dog a scratch behind the ear and then returns his attention to the plane.

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race, Alaska’s annual competition from Anchorage, in the south, to Nome on the Bering Sea in the northwest, is a grueling 1,049-mile trek across the state’s interior, and represents the ultimate challenge for musher and dog team. Add to that: airplane and pilot.

Since its inception in 1973, the Iditarod has depended on a corps of volunteer bush pilots, the Iditarod Air Force, to move people and supplies along the trail. Last year, this included flying in more than 75,000 pounds of dog food for the "athletes," 800 bales of straw for bedding, 23,400 wooden surveyor’s stakes to mark the trail, 1,020 cases of Heet (cooking fuel used by the racers), lumber and the carpenters to build temporary shelters at checkpoints. They then ferry veterinarians, race officials, communications volunteers and checkpoint staff – just some of the more than 1,000 volunteers who make the race possible – and take out tons of trash.

Simply put: The Iditarod would not be possible without the help of general aviation. The distances are too great, the checkpoints too remote and the quantities of people and material too voluminous to make it practical by any other means. When the late Joe Redington sat down to begin planning for the first race in 1973, he was joined by a couple of bush pilot buddies. As the Iditarod has grown in size and sophistication, so has its aerial support.  

This effort reflects the state's overall reliance on aviation. According to the Federal Department of Transportation, there are only 12,823 miles of public roads in Alaska, less than in Vermont, a state with only 2 percent of the land area as Alaska. This leaves much of the state inaccessible except by boat (in the summer) or airplane. Accordingly, there are more pilots per capita in Alaska than any other state, with one pilot per 76 residents, more than three times that of the next highest state (Montana, with one per 245 residents).

Preparing to load passengers.

The 29 volunteer pilots of the Iditarod Air Force leave their jobs and families for up to a month. Despite the sacrifice of time and expense (the race pays only for the pilots’ fuel, food and board), most Iditarod pilots are longtime race veterans – a majority for more than 10 years, and some for more than 20. They do it for a lot of reasons, whether to be part of an event that has grown from a regional success to a world-class sporting event, the challenge of flying to rugged backcountry strips in conditions that they might otherwise not, or the camaraderie of being with a group of people who love flying and love dogs. They also get to join the ultimate Alaskan festival. The Iditarod is like Mardi Gras, the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl rolled into one. And for the volunteers, it’s like a family reunion.

The Iditarod: Like the Mardi Gras, the Kentucky Derby and the Super Bowl rolled into one.
--Cameron Lawson photo

To qualify for the air force, pilots must have a minimum of 1,000 hours total flying time (the average is around 9,000 hours), a minimum of 500 hours flying time in Alaska, a minimum 100 hours of winter flying time in the past two years and a minimum of 100 hours flying on skis. The stiff requirements reflect the demands of the job. Bush flying is an art, even more so in winter. 

Inside a suite at the Millennium Hotel in Anchorage, the official race headquarters, Iditarod Chief Pilot John Norris is hunched over a computer, scouring weather maps and forecasts. Keeping tabs on the weather is just one of Norris’s responsibilities. An 18-year veteran of the air force, Norris is a middle-aged man with tight, curly hair, a broad face and an easy smile. Over the previous few weeks, Norris and other air force pilots had begun moving supplies out along the trail, and to scout the landing strips. The strips tend to be the same each year, Norris says, but conditions change year by year, and even over the course of the race, “so before anyone lands, we have someone check the conditions. Usually, it’s me.”

Flight dispatch at the McGrath "hub." 

Flight operations are organized into four “hubs” along the trail – in Anchorage, at the start of the race, McGrath, in the interior of the state, Unalakleet, on the western coast, and Nome, at the finish. As the race progresses, the air force leap frogs ahead of the racers to put people and supplies in place at the 27 checkpoints. Load coordinators based at each hub organize the staging of supplies and take in requests to move people and equipment. Using a giant flow chart, they match mission with pilot, trying to maximize efficiency by making sure the planes fly as few empty runs as possible. The vast majority of flights are planned in advance, but occasionally a plane is needed in a pinch to move something or someone urgently, or perhaps to aid in the search for a lost racer.

At the moment, John is concerned about the weather. A pair of high pressure systems have planted themselves at opposite ends of the state, making for mostly clear skies, but as passing low pressure systems attempt to move through, the clashing air masses have produced fierce winds and severe turbulence, making general aviation flying practically impossible. Norris has already cancelled all Iditarod flights for that day, and with the start of the race just two days away, Norris is worried he’ll be forced to cancel the next day’s missions, putting him even further behind.

In addition to the NOAA forecasts, Norris gathers information from a variety of sources, including spotters along the trail, other pilots, friends who live across the state, FAA weather cams scattered about the state, and even passing airliners. After reviewing the maps, Norris hops in his car to get a second opinion at the weather service station at adjacent Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. There, Norris is introduced to briefer David Hadley. Surrounded by computer screens, Hadley pulls up a number of maps showing the state. One depicts the pressure systems, the boundary between them a series of tightly bound pressure gradients. Other maps depict surface reports at various stations, winds aloft and forecasted turbulence. 

“The good news,” Hadley sums it up, “is there’s plenty of sunshine.” The winds, however, are something else. Twenty-five to 30 knots at the surface, with gusts up to 40 knots. At 2,000 feet, they pick up to 50 knots. Near terrain, it’s especially bumpy. And by the looks of things, it will stay pretty much the same. 

Final approach into Rohn Pass. 

Another consequence, Hadley says, is the cold. “I’m not going to say that it’s never been this cold, because it has, but with these winds and the wind chill, it’s going to be brutal.” Temperatures in McGrath had been hovering around minus 30F degrees. With the wind chill, it feels more like minus 60F degrees. The biggest challenge with winter backcountry flying, other than the weather and terrain, is dealing with the extreme temperatures. In subzero temperatures, engine oil congeals to the consistency of peanut butter. Avionics and engine instruments cease functioning. Bearings in gyros gum up. Tachometer cables freeze. Metal cables shrink and controls stiffen. Trim wheels won’t turn. Flaps take a Herculean effort to lower. Doors and windows become stiff and brittle. 

In the old days, pilots used to drain the engine oil at the end of the day and bring it indoors for the night, placing it in a can near the kitchen stove. In the morning, they’d pour it back into the engine. Today, as long there’s electricity; pilots can plug in oil pan heaters. If not, they can rig camp stoves with some plumber’s hose into the engine compartment a couple hours before flying. This, along with a cowling and prop cover, usually does the trick. For the cockpit instruments, a 75-watt light bulb hung under the panel generates enough warmth to keep things in working order. 

Improvised engine heater using camp stove, coffee can and some plumbers' hose
  --Cameron Lawson photo

To keep wings and tail surfaces clear of snow, ice and frost (even a thin layer of frost can ruin the aerodynamic shape of a wing), pilots put covers over the wings and tail. With these “portable hangars,” even after an overnight snowstorm or ice storm, the pilot only needs to remove the covers and the plane is ready to go. 

Norris has his own process for preparing for winter flight. In addition to everything mentioned above, he starts the engine, lets it run at a low idle for 15-20 minutes, then shuts down. He then loads his cargo and passengers, allowing the engine heat to circulate through the plane. 

Even so, pilots try to avoid flying if the cold is too extreme, say minus 30F degrees. If given the option, they prefer waiting an hour or two for it to warm up to a balmy minus 25F. The stresses on the engine are too great. Every hour flown in extreme cold is the equivalent of 20 hours normal flying, Norris says. 

The next day, contrary to Hadley’s prediction, the winds have died down, if only a little. Pilot Dale Olsen introduces himself prior to a flight to McGrath, about 200 miles by air and 350 miles up trail. Olsen, in the Alaskan tradition, takes his hand out of his glove to shake hands, no matter how cold it is. Olsen, a second-year pilot for the Iditarod, flew for the Marines in Vietnam and is a retired pilot for United Airlines, having flown DC-10s and 747s on the airline’s Pacific routes. Lean and athletic, he has an erudite, almost professorial manner. Like most of the other pilots, he flies a Cessna 180. The Cessna 180 and 185, though a half-century old, make up the backbone for backcountry flying. The planes are rugged and efficient, with plenty of power to get over the hills and haul up to 1,100 pounds (1,600 pounds in the case of the 185). 

From behind the hotel, on frozen Lake Hood (in summertime the busiest floatplane base in the world) Olsen performs his preflight. He pays particular attention to checking his fuel sumps, looking for the telltale glitter of ice flakes suspended in the fuel. Even at very cold temperatures, ice can form from condensation in fuel tanks. Or, when there is blowing snow or an ice fog (an arctic phenomenon in which the water droplets have frozen), tiny ice crystals can be sucked in through the fuel tank vents or intakes. This ice has the potential to clog fuel lines, particularly in fuel-injected engines. Since water in suspension or solution is not removed by sumping, anti-icing additives, such as isopropyl alcohol, are added to the fuel. 

After starting up the engine, Olsen taxis into position for takeoff. With skis, Olsen explains, maneuvering on the ground can be a bit tricky. There are no brakes. You have to plan ahead. Turning the plane around, especially in heavy snow, can be damn near impossible. “If you have a narrow space to turn around in,” Olsen says, “you can do a maneuver that more or less is a kind of controlled ground loop by gunning the engine. It’s an act of faith, but you can do it.” Landing on ice, he explains, about the only way to slow down is to shut the engine down. And engine run-ups, he says, have to be finessed: in most cases, while taxiing or during the take-off run. 

Flying up the pass with Dale Olsen. 

Since Lake Hood Airport is situated between the runways of Anchorage International, traffic is controlled by Anchorage tower. In all, four busy airports lie within a five-mile radius of each other (Anchorage International, Lake Hood, Merrill Field and Elmendorf Air Force Base), making Anchorage a complex piece of airspace within which to navigate. Olsen turns northward after taking off, flying at or below 900 feet until reaching the other side of Cook Inlet, then climbing at 1,400 feet or below until clear of the Class C airspace. 

Once past Anchorage’s airspace, the land opens up into a broad, empty flatland leading up to the Alaskan Range toward Denali National Park, in the shadow of Mount McKinley. There are no roads, no power lines, and no towns – only the occasional hunting or fishing lodge. Olsen follows the trail, flying about 1,000 feet over the terrain. In the summer, this land is an endless bog, accessible only by boat or floatplane. Winter opens the territory up, and the tracks of snowmobiles, or “snow machines” as Alaskans call them, create a web of lines intersecting each other, tracing cursive loops in the snow-covered ponds and open plains. By the time Olsen has reached the base of the pass, he has only climbed to 1,500 feet. The mountains ahead look huge, and they are, but given that the tree line is only around 2,000 feet only adds to their rugged profile. 

The Cessna 180: The national plane of Alaska.  --Cameron Lawson photo

Flying in Alaska is truly amazing. The vastness of the land, the terrain and the fact that given the proper equipment you can land just about anywhere, make it unique. By the same token, it’s easy to find yourself in a bad situation. It’s a long distance between fuel stops, and weather reporting is spotty. If the weather closes in, you could find yourself without enough fuel to get to an alternate. 

            

“It’s about managing risk,” Olsen says, “which of course is what all flying is about. But up here you can find yourself in a bad situation right away.” As proof, he says, “The state is littered with the carcasses of airplanes.”

GPS has revolutionized flying in Alaska, making possible direct routes possible from what used to be long, circuitous ones, saving time and fuel. Or to keep from going up the wrong canyon when the visibility goes down.

The ride is smooth, despite winds of 30 knots. As Olsen starts flying up the pass, he clings along the windward edge of the canyon, leaving himself enough room to make a 180 degree turn back should he need to, and hoping to benefit from any updraft when the wind blowing off the opposite rim sinks, then hits his side and pushes upward. 

After crossing Rainy Pass, the highest point along the trail at 3,771 feet MSL, Olsen drops into Rohn, a checkpoint on the trail. Situated at the convergence of three canyons, the tiny strip at Rohn is considered the gnarliest on the trail, notorious for its swirling winds, turbulence, and frequent white out conditions. Situated right around tree line, Rohn’s elevation is only about 2,000 feet MSL but it looks like Everest base camp. The strip has two windsocks, one at each end of the strip. More often than not, Olsen says, they are pointing in opposite directions. 

After Rohn, it’s about another 60 miles across a long, desolate plain of scrubby spruce, the “Farewell Burn,” the remnants of a huge forest fire 30 years ago. Olsen could if he wanted tune in the McGrath VOR and fly straight there, but he prefers to navigate via dead reckoning. He knows where McGrath is. 

McGrath is a hamlet of about 370 people tucked into the nook of an oxbow along the meandering Kuskokwim River  near where it is joined by the Takotna River. The furthest point upriver that could be serviced by steamboats, the town was founded in 1907 during one of the state’s gold rushes. When the gold ran out, McGrath’s fortunes foundered. Today, it is a place to weigh in for supplies, or as a launching point for backcountry fishing or hunting trips. And, of course, as a hub for the Iditarod. 

 

The flight line in McGrath.

Each day begins with a flight briefing for the pilots. Flying his Cessna 180 to McGrath to join the other pilots, Chief Pilot John Norris gives a breakdown of the mission assignments for the day, along with the weather (high winds, turbulence, marginal VFR in places due to blowing snow), and an update of the field conditions at the various landing areas, pointing out hazards such as snow drifts, exposed stumps or ice dams. 

“I’ll never say when a pilot has to fly,” Norris says. “But I can tell him when he can’t.” Norris will never pressure a pilot to fly in conditions or to places that he’s not comfortable with, but he does reserve the right to tell them when they cannot fly, either for their own safety, or the safety of their passengers. After all, as Norris and most of the pilots are acutely aware, the viability of the race depends on the integrity of the air force pilots. As a consequence, in the 35 years the race has been run, there has never been a fatal accident involving the air force.  

Dedicated Unicom frequencies and satellite phones allow the pilots to be in nearly constant communication with the hubs, as well as each other. The race has also asked the pilots to carry aboard small GPS transceivers so that their progress can be tracked over the Internet.

Jim Kintz stubs out his cigarette, pulls on a military surplus coat with a fur-lined arctic hood, and in a fog of exhaled smoke and breath heads out to his Cessna 180. His destination is the village of Takotna, an eight-minute flight up the river of the same name. Kintz, 72, is a 15-year Iditarod pilot. He grew up in Gillette, Wyoming. In 1952, he and a couple of high school buddies pooled their money and for $500 bought a 66 horsepower Aeronca. He has lived in Alaska 50 years, and though he never made a career out of flying, he’d ferry aircraft, fly summers for backcountry hunting lodges, whatever it takes to keep flying. 

Pilot Jim Kintz at Rohn checkpoint.

On takeoff, Kintz pulls the carburetor heat. Cold air is dense. At 30F below and standard pressure. The density altitude at McGrath, altitude 337 feet above sea level, is 6,139 feet below sea level, so the only way to get the mixture rich enough to get the engine running safely and efficiently for take-off is to draw in warmer air. 

Takotna, a village with a population that varies from about 80 in the winter to 140 in the summer, lies on a bend above the river. The landing is on the river itself. On downwind, Kintz eases the plane to a couple hundred feet over the treetops, then puts in full flaps and, with a lot of trimming back, turns and follows the river bend, gently banking the plane to the edge of the landing area, marked by some pine boughs, kissing the plane onto the snow. 

Kintz is old school. He won’t wear a headset, uses a hand mike, and complains about “those damn airline pilots with their 24,000 hours.” His directional gyro is broken – has been for a while – and though he installed a GPS, he never really learned to use it, so he flies with the thing turned off. No matter, Kintz has flown everywhere, and could just about fly the terrain in his sleep. Though unassuming, even cantankerous, Kintz has stories that would curl your hair. But he knows what he’s doing, and commands a lot of respect from the other pilots. 

“I’ve learned a lot from Jim,” says Ken Kastner, a six-year Iditarod veteran whose hobby is buying junk airplanes, tearing them down and rebuilding them. “If he tells you the weather’s bad, believe me, you don’t want to go there.”

Perhaps because of his experience, Kintz will fly in conditions many pilots won’t. A typical exchange with Kintz might go like this:

“Jim, where’d you just come from?”

“Rohn.”

“Really, how was it?”

“Miserable. Swirling winds, turbulence you wouldn’t believe, almost zero visibility. You’d have to be an idiot to fly up there.”

“Wow. So where are you flying next?”

“Rohn.”

There's a mountain out there... somewhere.

Becoming a bush pilot takes time and practice. “Learning to fly in the bush is a process of making the same mistakes over and over until you get it right,” says Wes Erb, a wise-cracking North Carolina native who made Alaska his home after a stint in the Air Force as a navigator on AWACS planes flying out of Elmendorf in Anchorage. A third-year pilot for the Iditarod, he now flies MD-11s for FedEx out of Anchorage. The trick, he says, is making sure the mistakes you make are small ones, because there are many mistakes you only get one chance to make. Erb says most of his troubles came in trying to maneuver the plane on the ground after landing. He recalls many hours digging his plane free out of snowbanks. 

Erb uses a GPS exclusively to fly the backcountry, if for no other reason than the fuel savings. He never flies IFR (“Not unless someone pays me to do it.”) His Cessna 180 doesn’t even have a VOR receiver in it. “I like to keep the enemy in front of me,” he says about the weather. Flying IFR in Alaska is too difficult. Because of the terrain and the distance between navaids, Erb says, you have to climb to 10,000 feet just to talk to someone, and in many cases the minimum en route altitudes are high enough to require supplemental oxygen. Besides, “I can’t think of nothing scarier than having an engine quit on you and having to descend through the soup into God Knows What.” 

 “Bush flying is a very personal thing,” explains Olsen. “Say you’re on skis looking to take off on wet, sticky snow. Will you get off in time to clear those trees? You have to decide, because looking in the pilot’s handbook won’t help.” Everybody develops their own technique. Kintz, for example, trims back on approach, slowing the plane until it’s right on the verge of a stall. Erb, on the other hand, trims forward, coming in steeply so he has plenty of altitude and a better view of the landing area. Olsen, then again, likes to trim straight and level, letting the combination of power and flaps slow the plane to approach speed. “There’s the right way. There’s the wrong way, and then there’s your way,” Olsen says. 

During the race, one of the jobs the pilots are asked to do is to fly dogs dropped from teams because illness, injury or exhaustion (teams can start with up to 16 dogs). The dogs, which are leashed to the inside of the plane, are generally well-behaved. If they do act up, the pilots can push the nose of the plane over, making the animals momentarily weightless, which usually quiets them right down. As many as 16 dogs have been squeezed into one plane.

Flying first class.

The wind has died down, and behind it low clouds and marginal VFR conditions have pushed in, with mountain obscurationand scattered snow showers – perfect flying conditions, jokes Wes Erb. Taking off from Eagle Island, a checkpoint on Yukon River, Erb turns eastward, back to McGrath. On either side, mountains disappear into a whiteout, and Erb uses a combination of his GPS and dead reckoning to navigate. Once over the Takotna River, he descends to just over the trees and does a series of chandelles, and looks for wolves reported in the vicinity the day before. 

Erb says he really wants to get his father from North Carolina up to Alaska to fly with him. His dad has seen pictures, but as a longtime IFR pilot he is incredulous. “He thinks I’m cavalier about flying,” Erb says. “I know I seem to be, but I just want to get him up here to show him that, yeah, it’s different, but it’s still a discipline.”

Like many of the other Iditarod pilots, Erb never flies his plane out of state. Why bother? You can go anywhere, land anywhere, and have the most spectacular views in the world. 

John Norris agrees, adding: “If I flew in the Lower 48 the way I do up here, I’d be arrested.”