Bush Pilot - A Path Less Chosen

what's up guys welcome back to the spot cz up here in northern bc yeah here with my new friend brian who is a what do you call what you do is it bush pilot well if bush flying still exists this this is what it would be i i like to think yeah and it does exist and you are taking a career path less chosen that i think a lot of you guys would be interested in because turns out to be a career pilot you don't have to just go fly for the airlines you mind sitting down telling us about what you do yeah absolutely i'd love to let's do it [Music] my name is brian carruthers 24 years old this is my fourth season up in the spats easy worked as a fishing guide for a couple years and then now i'm up here still is a fishing guide but uh getting to do a little bit of more flying every season this year i'm flying the beaver a little bit and how long you've been flying from i started flying in 2016. so i guess been flying for uh six years now i'm just over a thousand hours so i'm still pretty green over half of my flying would be either remote strips like gravel strips and then a few hundred back country and what would you consider back country back country flying to me is is remote you're using your head a little bit more you're getting away from the procedures a little bit more in the sense of you're not doing what the book says and then every spot you go to is different you need a means to be kind of self-sufficient right because there's a lot more that can go wrong weather plays a huge factor so we're usually over 100 miles from any community that might have a helicopter that they could dispatch in an emergency you got to think could be a couple days before you could ever get some help so the more remote you get the more risk-averse i would say you become so you have any other flying goals like moving forward i kind of want an operation i want to own an airplane but uh the only way i think it's liable is if it works for me and i see it like a lot of opportunity like a lot of a lot of the guys doing this are so old no i don't really see too many nearly as many people stepping up right yeah everyone's going the airline route these days i always wanted to be a pilot right and maybe early early on in elementary school like the airlines appealed to me kind of later in elementary school i started learning about the bush flying right and started seeing videos right you know this day and age there's so much on youtube so you start seeing all the piper cubs and and you know kind of just went down the rabbit hole there i see why people do go that airline route but for me i just see all the different opportunities you know maybe you don't make quite as much but does it matter success to me isn't isn't just about money it feels really good at the end of the day to uh to overcome problems right and uh to have done a good job and that's that's where you take a lot of pride i think and what's a normal day look like a normal day wake up around six you know get the pre-flight going get the water out of the floats because they're leaking overnight every night well aside from flying i do i do a fair bit i think flying almost comes last which at times can be the difficult part because you know it's beautiful up here and i love to be up here but uh you know flying is the reason why i'm still up here do a lot of dishes do some painting do some plumbing working on outboards mechanics some basic carpentry fishing guide fishing guide every day almost every day so watch people fish a lot help people fish tie on flies switch flies you know release a lot of fish cook fish it's an experience a lot of people don't get i think flying around to these remote places and uh into this pristine wilderness and just great fishing there's not as much left of this never had any close calls with fuel i have in the 185 yeah [Music] just a headwinder had had the airplane filled up yeah but uh it was on the dock and it was shifting in the wind or not like rocking in the wind at the dock on the river yeah but spilling a bunch of peel it wasn't wasn't full when i left i guess right a lot of it went overboard and how do you even get fuel up here logistically it takes a lot of work just to get fuel up here and to keep fuel up here because we we burn it typically we get our fuel a few ways you know there's a a closer lake here to the east where it can be trucked in closer to where it's like 30 miles away but it's a long dirt road in you know it's it's 10 hours on dirt so you're not you're not getting a b train in there you're not getting you're not getting a big tank right you're you're getting some drums in um and then where our float base is to the west like 90 miles uh we have a substantial like 10 000 liter tank there so sometimes we're filling drums sometimes we're filling bladders jerry cans it's a lot of work these airplanes are thirsty right you know you do you do what you have to do right and that's that's what i think is fun actually flying the airplane and well personally enjoying what you do a pilot is essential to this operation i do feel lucky right like but i'm up here for the same reason they're up here right because i i love these experiences and i want to be up here [Music] [Music] all right guys thanks for uh tuning in to this one i hope you guys didn't mind the little departure from my regular flying content but i really thought brian's story was cool hearing how he has chosen kind of to go off the beaten path of what commercial aviation normally is i think it's awesome to see that the uh career path of a bush pilot is still alive and viable so i hope you guys enjoyed that as well and thank you again to brian for letting me uh point my camera at your face and ask you a whole bunch of questions and to anyone interested i'll put a link to brian's instagram in the description it's just at brian carruthers so make sure to go over and give him a follow but before i sign off i do want to take a second to give a huge shout out and thank you to my friends over at squarespace for sponsoring this video for those that don't know squarespace is the ultimate way to build a website and run your business you start with one of their award-winning templates crafted into your own beautiful professional looking and working website that is optimized for both desktop as well as mobile and they have features for every industry so it doesn't really matter what you're trying to do with your website you're going to be able to do it with squarespace and like i said zero experience necessary it's super easy to build anything from an online store to a professional photo gallery or a personal blog anything that you're trying to do you can do it with squarespace so if you haven't yet head over to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to purchase make sure to use code trent palmer at checkout that'll get you 10 off thank you again squarespace for sponsoring this one and you guys know the drill like this video if you do subscribe if you haven't come be my wingman we'll see on the next one peace you

Channel: Trent Palmer

Views: 292,764

Keywords: trent palmer, bush plane, bush pilot, aviation, airplane, pilot, flight, airline pilot, flying job, professional pilot, captain, alaska, canada, float plane, seaplane, floats, commercial, commercial pilot, learn to fly, learning to fly, becoming a pilot, flying, flying tips, flying a fighter jet, flying car, airplanes, airplane seat, airplane crash videos

Id: 4P_yXoPIQ3U

Length: 8min 27sec (507 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 21 2022