Knowing what a daredevil you are when it comes to flying Larry, I hesitate to comment on your posting, but will anyway.
Ted Stevens wasn't flying the plane that killed him and those that were with him. Instead, it was more than likely piloted by one of the many low-time pilots who have heard Alaska is an easy place to get a time-building job than it is in many easier places to fly. It's had that reputation for years - a place for low-paying time-building flying jobs. When things go right it can serve this purpose but Alaska is a place where the unpredictable reigns. Adapting (or not) to the unpredictable either makes a good pilot out of you, or kills you. I vaguely recall that the aircraft charter service used by Stevens and crew were using a high quality turbine for their trip out of King Salmon so their crash wasn't the aircraft's fault but rather the fault of an inexperienced low-timer flying a plane beyond his skill levels in an environment that was also apparently beyond his skillset. Stevens, like so many politicians, was a crook and is missed only by those who were taking advantage of his ill gotten gains. They renamed Anchorage International in his name . . . in the same way and for the same reason they renamed Jan Smuts in Johannesburg to "Oliver Tambo" International. Yes, the accident rate is high in Alaska but that isn't from stretching the limitations in the operation manuals. Many moose and bears have been successfully brought home strapped to the struts of an old taildragger Cessna or Piper. Rather, the high accident rate is primarily due to the sometimes vicious temperatures, cloud levels, (ice, in other words) very high obstructions otherwise known as mountains, and often unexpected events like finding a moose family on the runway when you're still going too fast to go around or over, etc. Alaska is full of this kind of stuff and you either listen to others and learn from their wisdom and from your own narrow escapes . . . or you wind up like the Stevens party who, if I recall correctly, only had some low ceilings to deal with (an extremely common occurrence in Alaska) and generally sine quite benign topography of the King Salmon area that exceeded the situational skill (despite having GPS . . . something we never had in the 60's) of whatever poorly qualified youngster who was trying to fly the plane that day. Stevens was no great loss. The others I don't know about although if they were sidekicks of Stevens were probably no great loss either. Anyone who takes pleasure in killing animals is not worth the air they breathe, to my mind. I met plenty of them in Africa (I refused to let them in my aircraft). Running into them always prompted an urge in me to use one of their $5000 - $10,0000 custom rifles on them so I could ask them how it felt. Mike StirewaltKSEE
-- KRnet mailing list KRnet@list.krnet.org https://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet
