By Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848
This piece originally ran in Vic’s Checkpoints column in the November 2024 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.
A large driver for my focus on maintenance reliability earlier this year was due in part to a planned trip to Alaska. I didn’t want to jinx the trip by mentioning it, as we’ve learned over the years that the Alaska trips have so many potential variables that can cause the best-laid plans to not come to fruition.
The weather window is quite narrow for flying a small general aviation aircraft up and back from the Lower 48, lasting from June through August. I needed to be back in time for EAA AirVenture Oshkosh.
The last thing you want is to be backed up against a schedule while flying to Alaska, as you can end up getting stuck (granted, it’s not a bad place to be stuck if you can find hotel rooms). Or worse, you can end up making a bad decision that can have fatal consequences.
This year we had a goal of taking a specific route. There are about four or five routes to Alaska from the Lower 48, and we have flown all of them except this last one. Our mission is to now put a book highlighting all the various routes together for all of you who wish to make this trip. Hopefully, we can get that done over the winter, as well as some videos.
Flying to Alaska takes almost a year of planning, so I thought I would share some more lessons and highlights of this trip without getting into the gritty details. The first thing to remember is that flying your own aircraft to Alaska is not like going on a cruise. You cannot count on being in specific locations at specific times. The key word is flexibility.
For example, Carol starts making the hotel reservations early in the year for the summer trip. This year, we made it to none of the hotels on the preplanned schedule.
The horrible weather patterns this year in the Midwest seemed never to let up and caused us to leave four days late. It is important that you work with hotels that allow flexibility with arrival times, as it is a busy time of the year for them. Just showing up and expecting to find a hotel room may not work.
The lifesaver this year was using EAA’s Hotel Engine member benefit. It enables you to book rooms with a flex option that allows last-day cancellations or changes without a penalty.
Leaving four days late really threw a crimp in the schedule, and the same weather patterns forced a whole new route. I assure you this is no small feat. Besides the flying portion of the trip, there are U.S. and Canadian customs procedures to deal with, both outgoing and incoming. I had prepared a notebook on phone numbers and electronic advance passenger information system manifests with dates and times all worked out. It didn’t go as planned.
In the process of reworking all those route plans, I realized the day before we left that I had procured a Canadian Passenger Accelerated Service System (CANPASS) only for myself, erroneously thinking I just needed it for the airplane. Now we had a new fly in the ointment. I don’t know how I missed that, as in years past I had CANPASS authorization for both of us, but, of course, it had expired.
We were just about to cancel the whole trip due to weather when it looked like there might be a weather window to get to Nebraska, wait it out overnight, and then continue to Edmonton, Alberta, bypassing our original first Canadian stop of Winnipeg, Manitoba. We managed to get within 8 miles of North Platte, Nebraska, before we had to turn around and backtrack about 30 miles and land.
I have never seen thunderstorms go so fast from nothing to tops at 55,000 feet in a matter of minutes, and then dump flooding rain for almost four hours. It was clear the next morning, and we were able to continue to Edmonton, with a stop at Cut Bank, Montana, for a break, fuel, and Canadian customs notifications of our expected arrival time.
My concerns about Canadian customs were for naught. When we arrived, I called them while still in the airplane. I apologized for being a minute late, and the customs agent asked tongue in cheek if there were any other changes “besides being a minute late.” I said no, and she said, “Write down this number, and welcome to Canada.” Wow!
For the remainder of the trip, dealing with Canadian customs was a pleasure. I can’t say the same for U.S. customs and will leave it at that.
Remember that keyword I mentioned earlier: Flexibility? Well, now that we were in Edmonton after two seven-hour flying days, we thought we would take a break for a day and see the city. It did not disappoint, but the weather for continuing the trip was not looking good at all.
When we went to bed on the second night, we were discussing returning home. When we got up the next morning, the forecast had changed, and it looked like we could get through the mountains and over to Prince George, albeit a different route than I had originally planned. Starting to sound familiar?
Keep in mind that this is a VFR trip. You are quite a bit farther north, so the freezing levels are lower. Flying over the mountains in the clouds is not always possible, due to icing. Besides, the objective of flying to Alaska is to see the scenery, not overfly it.
My goal for this part of the journey was to pick up the Alaskan Highway at Dawson City and follow it all the way to Fairbanks. Unfortunately, another all-too-common phenomenon reared its ugly head — fires. The Alaskan Highway was blocked by fires around Fort Nelson. It is not wise to deal with fires and smoke, especially in rising terrain.
A key feature of Canadian VFR sectionals is that there are marked VFR routes through the mountains and valleys. We found one that would get us to Prince George, and then up the Rocky Mountain Trench to Whitehorse. It was basically the same as following the Alaskan Highway, as it also followed a road. Some of the VFR routes only follow rivers. While I was busy flight planning, Carol was busy trying to find hotel rooms, as now the schedule was really messed up.
Long story short, the weather continued to be good enough to continue the trip all the way to Homer, Alaska, and then back to Anchorage, allowing us a week in the state. The weather closed in behind us almost every day after we departed, and it was the same on the return trip. Returning through the Midwest was uneventful, with Hurricane Beryl closing off the route the day after we flew through the Midwest.
I may have mentioned this in earlier columns, but the weather cameras that are available on the internet through the FAA are invaluable. I checked them for every leg prior to departure. I also got a telephone or in-person briefing by a flight service station specialist while in Alaska and Canada, even after I had briefed via ForeFlight. The local knowledge is worth its weight in gold. I always asked the same question: “Is there any reason to not go?”
Flight plans are required in Canada for any trip more than 25 miles away from the airport. The nice thing is that towered airports both open and close your VFR flight plans.
The focus on maintenance paid off. The stats on the trip were approximately 8,700 statute miles over 16 days, burning 700 gallons of fuel in 57 hours at an average groundspeed of 148 knots. All I had to do was put fuel in it and turn the key. Everything worked flawlessly.
That still didn’t keep my mind from wandering during the many legs that were more than two hours in length without any sign of civilization! But the fun factor was very much alive for this trip, and I encourage all of you to put it on your bucket list.
Vic Syracuse, EAA Lifetime 180848, is a commercial pilot, A&P/IA mechanic, designated airworthiness representative, and EAA flight advisor and technical counselor. He has built 11 aircraft and has logged more than 11,000 hours in 75 different types. Vic founded Base Leg Aviation, has authored books on maintenance and prebuy inspections, and posts videos weekly on his YouTube channel. He also volunteers as a Young Eagles pilot.