AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2017 - 77

The expertise required of Alaska bush
pilots has become so difficult to find that
Rainbow and other high-end lodges have
begun grooming their own pilots-many
from the ranks of fishing and hunting
guides. Ken Strickler, chief pilot at Rainbow
Lodge for 14 seasons, said it's become nearly
impossible for new pilots to meet insurance
requirements that include 1,000 hours flying
time in Alaska, 500 hours on floats, and 250
in de Havilland Beavers, as well as instrument ratings and commercial certificates.
"Renting a float Beaver for training is
prohibitively expensive," said Strickler, a
U.S. Army veteran who learned to fly at a
military aero club and gained hundreds
of hours of Beaver experience in the Civil
Air Patrol. "We're grooming our own pilots
because we find it's the best way to ensure
they have what it takes to be successful in
this environment. They have to be selfstarters. They need to be independent.
And they need to be willing to stand up for
themselves and do what's safe, even when
that's inconvenient or unpopular."
Three of the Beaver pilots at Rainbow
Lodge were fishing guides first, and two of
them, Adam Grenda and Brett Nicholson,
obtained their pilot certificates for the purpose of flying here. Grenda, a CFI, frequently
flies with Nicholson to help the younger
guide/pilot gain real-world experience in a
place where the weather can quickly turn
violent, tides can rise or fall up to 20 feet
in six hours, submerged logs or high waves
can damage or destroy floats, and relatively
warm and humid Pacific air blows to the icy
Bering Sea with tremendous force.
Alaska lodge pilots fly under the relatively permissive Part 91 regulations, not the
more stringent Part 135 rules, and Strickler
said that's how it should be. "What we do
is nonstandard, and no operations manual could possibly cover every scenario we
encounter," he said. "The things we do are
different. We've got some tremendous tools
with GPS, real-time weather, and satellite
messengers that make our jobs easier. But
our pilots make decisions every day based
on their own judgment and experience-
and they wouldn't have it any other way."
FLYING AND FISHING

The King Salmon took off like a torpedo,
its round back out of the water. Grenda
gunned the 30-horsepower motor pointing

NIGHT WATER RESCUE

The most dangerous situation the pilots at Alaska Rainbow Lodge ever faced was the result of a
short trip that was expected to be totally routine.
It was August 2012, and Alaska Rainbow Lodge Chief Pilot Ken Strickler had dropped off
two fishing guides and an off-duty cook at a river about 15 air miles away so that they could
bring two boats back to the lodge before bad weather arrived that night. None of the boaters
brought survival equipment or satellite communication gear on the hastily assembled trip that
was expected to last just two or three hours.
Strickler flew back to the lodge, had dinner, and was preparing for bed when he wondered
about the boaters. He asked the other guides if they'd been seen or heard from them, and he
discovered no one had. Strickler knew he had to fire up the Beaver and find them before total
darkness and foul weather set in.
Chip Ferguson, then a bush pilot in training, volunteered to come along as a co-pilot. The
two took off and followed the Kvichak River to the drop-off point where it merged with the
Alagnak River. They called the guides on their marine radio as they flew.
The guides had become lost in the braided web of rivers and instead of heading upstream
on the Kvichak River toward the lodge, they had continued far downstream in the direction of
Bristol Bay on the Bering Sea coast. Finally, Stricker made radio contact with one of the guides,
who told him of their plight. Strickler asked them to light a red signal flare so he could see them.
He saw it seven miles downstream from the place he had dropped them off.
The guides were running low on gas and had beached their boats on a gravel bank at the
base of a cliff. They planned to walk to an abandoned cannery a few miles inland and use it as an
emergency shelter, but the guides couldn't see that their plan wouldn't work. A series of deep
sloughs made reaching the cannery impossible from their location.
Landing in darkness to attempt a rescue would be extremely hazardous, but Strickler saw
no other option. The incoming tide and storm surge would likely sweep the three boaters away
during the night. If the Beaver hit a gravel bar or a submerged log on landing, he and Ferguson
would likely suffer the same fate.
The pilots decided to land on the river. Strickler did so while watching a second signal flare
from the guides as Ferguson looked out the right side window calling out the airplane's approximate height above the water.
They touched down and taxied forward to the gravel bank, and then the guides piled in.
They took off in almost total darkness and found their way back to the lodge.
Landing at the lodge was easier because lights on the dock illuminated the area. That night
the wind kicked up to more than 40 knots, and it blew even harder the next day.
When Strickler flew to the gravel bar where the boats had been anchored, he discovered
they had been hurled up the cliff, swamped, and nearly swept away.
"Those three guys almost certainly would have perished if they had tried to stay there that
night," he said. "They would have been carried away by the tide or died from hypothermia."
The lessons learned from that event, Strickler said, are to avoid getting in a rush; prepare for
each trip and contingencies thoroughly; and monitor each other more closely.
"We're never going to put people at risk for equipment," Stricker said. "We almost lost three
people that night to save two boats."
-DH

the 18-foot johnboat toward the middle of a
narrow branch of the Alagnak River.
"Turn him away from those snags,"
Grenda told his fisherman client. "He's trying to shave you off."
The 40-pound-test line held and redirected the salmon to deeper water. It
alternately swam at the small boat, then
away from it. It breached the surface, then
dove for the bottom. After about five minutes, the fisherman pulled it close to the
boat. Instead of netting the fish, however,
Grenda examined it closely.
"It's a buck and it's still got sea lice on
the ventral fin," he said. "It probably came
into the river on this morning's [high] tide."
Grenda, 26, has been an Alaska fishing
guide for nine years and a bush pilot here
for three. Combining his passions allows the

Idaho native to thrive during the four-month
Alaskan salmon and trout fishing season.
"It's hard to decide whether I like flying or fishing more," said the burly, bearded
Grenda, who was married a year ago and
is looking for a flying career with full-time
benefits. "The beauty of this job is that I
get to do both."
Most lodge pilots must choose between
flying and guiding-but a few do both. Flying
typically pays more, between $7,000 and
$12,000 a month during a four-month season, compared to roughly $8,000 a month for
guides. Flying also is less physically taxing.
Guides are in constant motion, lifting,
rowing, wading, boating, netting, filleting,
and performing myriad other tasks for their
clients. Pilots typically fly from the lodge to
a fishing spot, and then sit for much of the
www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 77

http://www.aopa.org/pilot

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2017