Cold Days Are Best, say Alaska Pilots

Ever wonder what it's like to fly in the winter-time, up here?

The Alaska Star has a great story about some of the guys flying out of the Birchwood airport. (That's about 30 miles northeast of downtown Anchorage ... or, as long-time Alaskans would say, "It's over there," while waving their hands in that general direction.)

Excerpt:

To most of us, flying for pleasure doesn't seem like an obvious thing to do this time of year. If you didn't know better, you might think the snow, rain, ice, wind, darkness and changeable weather would keep local pilots' feet—if not their aspirations—planted on the ground.

You would be wrong.

Chugiak pilot Roger Denny explains it simply: "It's fun. Way fun."

 Denny, who flies out of the Birchwood Airport, also owns a Piper Super Cub outfitted in the winter with a pair of skis.

"Every swamp, meadow, river and mountaintop is a potential place to lay down a set of tracks," he said. "Everything is a runway."

Denny likens his plane to a snowmachine with wings.

"Flying is just playing and sightseeing," he said. "It's trying to land on some lake and make tracks; that's all you're doing."

Hopper prefers winter flying to summer flying.

"The air is so much clearer," he said. "You have clear blue skies, and the mountains are vivid white, and the glaciers are blue."

Read the whole thing here.