guadian air, the plane i will fly

This is the plane I took with some co-workers over to Venetie to hold a couple interviews. It was flown expertly this time by Danny-boy, who was our personnal pilot for the afternoon. The take off procedure involves nothing more than throwing your backpack in the rear, walking up the wing to the copilot seat and pulling your own door shut. No taxiing, no traffic control clearance, no fighting for overhead storage space, no shutting off of cell phones. In fact the pilot just waited for us, and we left on our own schedule. During the flight we watched some folks on sno-gos below making the trip by land, three hours on the snow, about thirty five minutes in the air.

I have it on good authority that Danny-boy likes to let his passengers fly themselves if there isn't anyone else aboard. As his plane is contracted for my grantee agency (the mothership employer of the Fort Yukon: CATG) I will be flying with him lots in the future. Sitting next to him on this flight I'm pretty sure I can keep the bird in the air when I get the chance.