[TPR] Flying in Alaska

[Bob Radefeld]

The first (& last) time I had the pleasure of visiting Alaska was in the early seventies when my then boss bought a new Buick station wagon right off the showroom for his wife & disconnected the speedometer before he, his son & I headed out to tackle the Alaskan Highway. When we arrived at the beginning of the highway we were told it was closed due to rock slides so we had to detour to Prince Rupert & take the inland ferry up to Juneau. Among our month long adventures we hired a guide & small plane to fly us out on the Aleutian Islands for some big time fishing. Man, I'll never forget the most rugged, beautiful & isolated terrain I've ever seen in my life below us during that flight & wondering how anyone could ever find us if we went down. Remember, I was young & not used to flying that much in a small aircraft & this was before ( I think?) all the now present avionics, GPS, etc. were available. As far as I knew, the radio was about the only way to let a search party know approximately where you might be if you went down - a scary thought in my mind at the time & what would happen if the radio was damaged if you did go down?? SOL came to my mind! 

When we flew out of Achorage to begin this trip I distinctly remember looking down @ all the small planes on the ground & in the bay & noticed that the large majority of them were painted WHITE. I began to wonder why any pilot would choose white as a color for his aircraft (ours included) in an envirornment like this where it seemed like 95% of the terrain beneath you was WHITE!! Seemed to me that I'd definitely prefer BLACK of some other dark color that would be easier to spot from the air in case of a mishap?? And you know, I was never able to get a good answer from anyone I spoke to after our flight concerning my question - go figure??

Bob 
 
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