Stories by Parajumpers - Alaskan Bush Pilot

[Laughter] [Applause] my name is Leanne Sally and I fly as a pilot for America I was born in Fairbanks Alaska which is a very cold town deep in the heart of the interior of Alaska I moved to Talkeetna about 13 years ago and the summer I moved to town and learn to fly I grew up in Alaska and so my idea of what a town is and what the butcher is different than a lot of peoples in the world I think so for instance Talkeetna is considered a urban town for Alaska because we have a road that goes to our towns there's many times in Alaska villages that don't have roaster than the net the to Alaska that's on the road system and the Alaska that's only access by airplane or is two different elastic we're very different from each other culturally I like both sides of Alaska versus village life that's off the road system and the road system life the road system life affords a lot of comforts that you can't get in the village but the villages offer a lot of escape from the craziness of the city life in Talkeetna is wonderful at the town of only seven hundred people and it's a dead-end road so the talent is all in one spot and the town is centered around its two runways like other towns grew up around a highway or a railroad depot so the town is built up around its runways and then from here the roads ends and the airplanes again my passion for flying comes from living in a big country where there are no road and in the place is beautiful is Alaska you have to have an airplane to see the rest of it I realized that had to learn to fly when I was growing up and I could carry the huge mountains on the horizon my finales are to the southwest and you can't get there on foot there's too far away over a really hard country and that doesn't air for me to see the rest of the country the history of aviation began in Talkeetna with the support for gold mining probably when the airplane came around in the forties fifties and sixties 1940 through the present day actually and so before that people have been mining the placer deposits una Dutch tin Peters Hill east of town since the early 1800s and previously they would come to stop heat note can get a road to it until 1966 they come to Talkeetna via the river or a trail and then they would have to get all of their things to the gold mines across many different rivers swamps lakes etc to get to the gold mines and so when the airplane came around it will figure it out really quick that the airplane is a way better way to get to the Gold Line than walking as the famous sign in the bar that says it's an advertisement for one of the early air taxes and it says by an hour or walk away [Music] Oh [Music] Oh Oh the first memory of my entire life is being in the backseat of my father's airplane and I must have been a tiny baby but I remember seeing the back of his head and there was a large husky dog in the airplane with me and I could feel the airplane moving through the air and he made a turn and I could see the trees and rivers below as the first memory of my life the first time I flew an airplane by myself they call it your first solo was probably one of the most amazing feelings of my whole life [Music] Alaska the land is from probably my most favorite place on earth I've been to most of the continents and a lot of big mountain ranges including the Himalaya and Nepal that I think the Alaska Range in the last days Alaska is my favorite because it is so big so wild and just the vast untouched wilderness full of he was impacted by sphere animals living in their natural habitat big rivers with no dams on them no Road and mountain ranges rising from 100 meters here and talking at a 6,000 meters in less than 100 kilometers [Music] my favorite airplane to fly is the beaver I like to fly the beaver because it's such an iconic Alaskan bush plane my favorite place to fly from Talkeetna is the Alaska Range by far the Alaska Range is my favorite place to fly because it is so vertical such a grand scale and it's the most beautiful place in the world I can think [Music] flying here day by day as yet to become a routine for me and I don't think it ever will it's the weather is always changing the conditions are always changing on the glaciers and in the air and so not only is it a really dynamic environment but it's a really beautiful place and be really hard to get prior to something that beautiful landing on the glacier is a lot easier than landing on the runway so when you land on the glacier we actually use a little bit of a slope in a glacier to slow momentum down so you land facing uphill and then you turn around and you take off downtown and if the snow is nice and powder snow it makes a nice that chocolatine for the airplane it's a very pleasurable thing to do and reducer in deep snow [Music] before I was a commercial pilot and mother I worked as a climbing guide up on Denali and so I have had the pleasure to go to the summit six times out of 12 expeditions and many more trips around smaller tips in the area so I worked as a guide for almost a decade for the Alaska mountaineering schools which is located here in Talkeetna and also did a lot of personal climbing Denisof I have never been afraid of flying I like all things that have to do with here climbing flying all of it when you try and climb enough moving Alaska is very very easy expect to make it sitting on it most of the time it's just about a journey that may or may not end in the summit that involves a lot of hardships and a lot of beauty and a lot of testing of yourself mentally and physically and basically like practicing a martial art in a really really beautiful place for an extended period of time [Music] my interest in aviation is definitely on the more poetic side so just that feeling of being in the air and piloting aircraft and flying through the mountains and landing on the glacier and seeing the seams below and I've learned enough maintenance to help the maintenance department out occasionally and do some preventative maintenance of my owners things but not much beyond that when Isis happened using my airplane if you agree via the responsibilities to them and the first thing I always tell them is that I'm a mother I had a good slave pilot and that space is my first priority but right behind that is showing them the Alaska Range in Alaska which is stunning and I've had people start crying because they thought the mountains were so beautiful my passengers a bush pilot is a broad definition and very few pilots in Alaska was referred to themselves as a bush pilot more you would say oh I am a floatplane pilot or I fly hunters or I am a glacier pilot which is that I am so it's like a species of this pilot my next move is a pilot is two-sided de Haviland daughter and I just received my first flight training today and it went really well I really wanted to fly the otter because it's a very powerful aircraft and very capable and it's just a pleasure and privilege to fly something like that piece of machinery like that there is only a few that exist in the world that are on you'll see I think on some level all pilots are escapist for instance if you have a I have a really bad day my first thing I want to do at the end of the day is jump into my airplane and head off into the Sun and still it [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Parajumpers PJS

Views: 279,594

Rating: 4.9112058 out of 5

Keywords: parajumpers, pjs, parajumper, pjsfriends, stories, parajumpersstories, stories by parajumpers, alaska, alaskan bush pilot, alaskan pilot, bush pilor, beaver, airplan, glacier, talkeetna, denali, denali national park, storytelling, Leighan Falley, flying, pilot, mountain, talkeetna air taxi, ski guide, alpinist, airplane, air taxi, jacket, coat, gobi, skimaster, mountain loft

Id: OgnxAKZyjPk

Length: 11min 50sec (710 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2017