Pod Insights The MeatEater Podcast Ep. 751: The Alaskan Bush Pilot About this episode Steven Rinella https://www.instagram.com/stevenrinella/?hl=en talks with Vance of Blackrock Aviation in Alaska.
Topics discussed: The risks a pilot takes; getting a feeling; visibility and wind; reading the water; the fantasy that you automatically know how to fly a plane; rinsing the plane every day; and more.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:45 Steven Rinella? Hey everybody, welcome to, uh, this, we're gonna call this an Alaska flop. This is a flop episode, meaning we record it, flop, it comes right out. And we're in Alaska, so it's an Alaska flop. And I'm here with my friend, and I like to think of him as my personal pilot. Vance, here's, uh, Robertus?
3:05 Speaker 04 Robertus.
3:06 Steven Rinella? Robertus, okay. We always call you Robertus.
3:10 Steven Rinella? I, I knew Vance is, Vance is a float plane pilot. This is his float plane right here. This is his personal plane.
3:19 Steven Rinella? You'd call him like a, you're a bush pilot.
3:22 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:22 Steven Rinella? Like Alaska bush pilot, flies on floats. I knew Vance prior, when he was flying down here in southeast Alaska for an aviation outfit. He left the aviation outfit, started his own aviation outfit called Black Rock Aviation. And he's a one man, one plane show.
3:41 Speaker 04 Right.
3:41 Steven Rinella? Right. You've been flying for how many years?
3:44 Speaker 04 Float planes, 23 years.
3:46 Steven Rinella? How, how long flying in general?
3:48 Speaker 04 About 30.
3:50 Steven Rinella? Born in Nebraska?
3:51 Speaker 04 Colorado.
3:52 Steven Rinella? Oh, Colorado.
3:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, lived in Nebraska for a while.
3:54 Steven Rinella? Okay, yeah. Born in Colorado, lived in Nebraska, came to Alaska at what age?
4:00 Speaker 04 I was probably about 35, 36, somewhere in there.
4:04 Steven Rinella? Had you always known you wanted to fly?
4:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, I just kinda grew up out in rural areas and like the, um, just watching crop dusters and stuff.
4:13 Steven Rinella? Oh, that's how you got interested?
4:14 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:15 Steven Rinella? So at what point, if you wanted to be a pilot and you want, and you want to, you know, and you love remote areas, and you like to hunt, you like to fish?
4:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:22 Steven Rinella? At what point in your life, at what age, did you be like, man, if you're gonna do it, do it in Alaska?
4:30 Steven Rinella? And what drew you to that part of it?
4:33 Speaker 04 I worked for uh, for uh, the airlines as an aircraft mechanic for several years before I finished all my ratings.
4:40 Steven Rinella? The big airlines?
4:41 Speaker 04 Yeah, I worked for Continental Airlines way back when and.
4:43 Steven Rinella? Wrenching on airplanes?
4:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, I worked for Boeing. Um, anyway, I saw those guys that, you know, dragging the black suitcases around and none of them were smiling.
4:54 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
4:55 Speaker 04 So, it's like living out of a suitcase and the ones I knew were all divorced or different, you know, going through divorce, so I can't.
5:01 Steven Rinella? Drinking in hotel bars every night?
5:03 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, I'm like, yeah, I don't think I want to do that route, but I want to fly. And then uh, I had my private light, I had my, actually I had my commercial rating and then I went and uh, went and got a float plane add-on and I'm like, okay, that's it. That's what I want to do. I want to fly floats.
5:17 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
5:17 Speaker 04 I kind of knew I wanted to do that, but getting in the door somewhere to do it, it's the tough part.
5:23 Steven Rinella? What do you mean?
5:24 Speaker 04 Getting, getting the hours before someone will even put you in the, in the seat.
5:28 Steven Rinella? Oh, you mean like to hire you, you gotta have hours, commercial hours?
5:32 Speaker 04 You gotta have float time, you gotta have Alaska time, you gotta have.
5:35 Steven Rinella? Got it.
5:36 Speaker 04 You know, all this, everyone has all these requirements, but.
5:39 Steven Rinella? Got you. So it takes a while to get, you need to have the job to get the job?
5:43 Speaker 04 Right. You gotta start somewhere else, usually in Alaska, like flying wheels or something.
5:48 Steven Rinella? I see, okay.
5:49 Speaker 04 I flew out of Bethel, Fairbanks for a year and then racked up a bunch of hours up there and then I got back down here as a, to fly floats.
5:58 Steven Rinella? And this is like, this is like the world's capital float plane activity, southeast Alaska?
6:03 Speaker 04 I, I don't know if it is anymore. It used to be. Uh, Lakewood's pretty busy with float planes too, up in Anchorage and stuff.
6:10 Steven Rinella? Okay, got it.
6:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, there's not as much industry as there used to be here as far as like commercial industry. There's the, there's the tourism, but there used to be um, a lot of logging camps and stuff and that kept um, float planes real busy, almost year round.
6:24 Steven Rinella? Got it, got it. So is that, is that industry dried up? That's affected how many float plane operators are working and how many hours you can get?
6:33 Speaker 04 I would say so, yeah. Guys aren't flying as many hours as they used to.
6:38 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
6:38 Speaker 04 Unless you're hauling, unless you have the mail contracts or something like that.
6:41 Steven Rinella? Yep. And a ton of guys, like a ton of guys in your occupation do flight seeing.
6:46 Speaker 04 Right.
6:46 Steven Rinella? But you, you tend to do, you do some of that when you do, but you tend to work for outfitters. You fly guys like us.
6:54 Speaker 04 Right.
6:54 Steven Rinella? Yeah. You don't do as many flight seeing tours as you do kinda like working, working operations.
7:00 Speaker 04 Right. I'll do, yeah, fishing lodges and, and, you know, people with cabins like you, remote, remote stuff.
7:06 Steven Rinella? Yep.
7:06 Speaker 04 Um, hunters.
7:08 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
7:08 Speaker 04 Stuff like that. But, uh, yeah, everyone has to do tours too. Just fill in the gaps and make some extra, extra money for the year, you know, so.
7:17 Steven Rinella? How do you, here's the thing that often comes up, and you, you guys get sick of asking about it. How do you like, how do you, in your mind, how do you quantify the risk of being a float plane pilot in Alaska? And just to, just real quick, like you guys are flying by, you, you're not instrument flying.
7:38 Speaker 04 No.
7:39 Steven Rinella? You're flying by what you can see.
7:40 Speaker 04 Visual, yeah. Visual flight rules.
7:42 Steven Rinella? Visual flight rules.
7:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:43 Steven Rinella? So like how, cause it's the, anytime I'll talk to people and be like, oh yeah, we have a cabin and we go out to our cabin, we charter a plane. And, and people always comment on like, what is the risk? How, how do you picture, like, how do you deal with or imagine the risk of being a pilot? Like you have to know, I'm sure you do.
8:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
8:03 Steven Rinella? You have to know in your career, a lot of pilots who've had wrecks, some, some survived, had wrecks and some died. Like, how do you begin to think about it?
8:12 Speaker 04 Um.
8:15 Speaker 04 If you're not thinking about it or about the risk, if you're not, if you don't have a little bit of a, you know, if something doesn't scare you anymore.
8:24 Steven Rinella? Uh huh.
8:24 Speaker 04 I mean, even just a little bit, then. You're probably not, you know, if you're too numb to it, then you probably shouldn't be doing it, you know?
8:33 Steven Rinella? Oh, you think so?
8:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's, there's risk out here, you know? I mean, but...
8:39 Steven Rinella? But do you, do you ever feel like as a pilot, do you ever, you don't feel afraid because you like, you're making like, you're always making your calculation, like you're the final say.
8:48 Speaker 04 But yeah.
8:48 Steven Rinella? Like we go or we don't go, right?
8:50 Speaker 04 Right, right. Yeah, but there's still always that, you know, like, yeah, that gut feeling, it's like, yeah, nope, not gonna do that.
8:57 Steven Rinella? Uh huh.
8:57 Speaker 04 You gotta, you gotta listen to that.
8:59 Steven Rinella? Do you get, you get like a, do you get like a feeling?
9:01 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah. You don't wanna be flying and, and, uh,
9:08 Speaker 04 and have that, but you get into situations where it's a little windy here, a little gusty there, and it's like, yep, I'm not landing there, you know? No good.
9:17 Steven Rinella? What is it, what is the biggest enemy? Is it, is it visibility or wind?
9:22 Speaker 04 Um, it's usually a combination, yeah. It's usually like, it's usually just like wind shear, gusts, and visibility, yeah.
9:30 Steven Rinella? Uh huh.
9:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, a lot of times it's a combination here in southeast. You get all of it at one time. You get low visibility with gusty winds and, and, uh, just, yeah, it's all, it's all, um, it could be a combination of it. It could be,
9:51 Speaker 04 I don't know.
9:53 Speaker 04 But the, the winds are,
9:56 Speaker 04 they could be pretty bad sometimes here, you know?
9:58 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
9:58 Speaker 04 Get up in the seventies and stuff, but yeah, you're not flying during that stuff.
10:01 Steven Rinella? Seventy miles an hour?
10:02 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, in the winter time, but yeah, we don't fly in that.
10:07 Steven Rinella? There's this idea, and I always tell people this, I don't even know if it's actually true. Is it like, when you're in an area that's all water and your on floats, isn't it some solace that you can always, there's always a place to land, or is it not that simple?
10:19 Speaker 04 Depends on the water.
10:22 Speaker 04 Yeah, the middle of straits when it's eight footers.
10:24 Steven Rinella? What happens then?
10:26 Speaker 04 You might get it down, but...
10:28 Steven Rinella? It ain't gonna be soft.
10:29 Speaker 04 It ain't gonna be soft, and it may not stay together on you.
10:31 Steven Rinella? I see.
10:32 Speaker 04 It may bust apart on you.
10:33 Steven Rinella? So what is the best, uh, how, how do you describe like, uh, what kind of seas can you land in, or what kind of seas does it become inadvisable?
10:43 Speaker 04 Well, I mean, you can land in two footers pretty easy in, in this plane, but, um, you start getting bigger than that, it starts, it's pretty rough landing.
10:52 Steven Rinella? So like six foot is no good?
10:53 Speaker 04 No, yeah, no good, yeah.
10:56 Steven Rinella? Because yeah, there's nothing smooth to hit.
10:58 Speaker 04 No, you're gonna, you're gonna hit one wave and go into the next one.
11:02 Steven Rinella? Got it, got it, got it.
11:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:04 Steven Rinella? The, uh, there's a thing I used to think it wasn't true about, it's gotta be true.
11:11 Steven Rinella? Okay, we talked about rough weather, rough water. Let's talk about calm water.
11:14 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:15 Steven Rinella? Is it true that you can have a, a body of water be so still that you need to create chop?
11:22 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:23 Steven Rinella? So that when you start going, the float's got something to bounce on or else like the surface tension of the water holds the plane in?
11:30 Speaker 04 Yeah, it's almost like a suction. Yeah, it'll, it'll keep you down on the water. You gotta have some ripples sometimes, like small lake or something that's just flat calm. And you need the whole lake to get off.
11:43 Steven Rinella? You'll cut circles.
11:44 Speaker 04 You'll do a circle or two, make some ripples and then when you hit those, boom, you'll pop off the water. Yeah.
11:49 Steven Rinella? Cause it'll actually like skip you up a little bit.
11:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, it'll break that tension.
11:54 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
11:54 Speaker 04 You can lift one floater at a time too. It's called glassy water. Yeah, it's, it's a thing. Yeah.
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15:07 Steven Rinella? To explore Zamberland's handcrafted hiking, hunting, and work boots, visit zamberlandusa.com. When you're like, in your area, there's lakes you'll land on. But let's say you were in an area and you only had to like, you're in an area and you're in an area you've never been for just whatever reason, and you're determining, can I land in a lake or not? What are you looking for?
15:36 Speaker 04 Well, you're looking for the size for one. A lot of times I wanna, I'll look at maps and you know, try to get some measurements.
15:43 Steven Rinella? Cause you need how, what, how many yards of water?
15:46 Speaker 04 Oh, probably 900. It's, it's nice to have 900 yards.
15:50 Steven Rinella? Okay, so a lot.
15:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, especially for a lake you haven't been into, right? So, um, then you're also looking for, um, the approach and departure. If there's, is there, is there terrain, is there trees? Is it, can you come in flat over the, uh, the creek that it's draining out of it or whatever? Is there a, is it one way in, one way out?
16:11 Steven Rinella? Yep.
16:12 Speaker 04 Can you do a step turn in there? Is it wide enough for that? Yeah, it's quite a few variables.
16:16 Steven Rinella? Yeah, and then you gotta think like, you always have to come into the wind.
16:20 Speaker 04 Not always, if you can land downwind, but.
16:22 Steven Rinella? Oh, you can land downwind?
16:23 Speaker 04 Um, it's gonna increase your, your, your ground run when you touch down.
16:28 Steven Rinella? Can you take off with the wind?
16:30 Speaker 04 Oh, with the tailwind? Yeah.
16:32 Steven Rinella? You can?
16:32 Speaker 04 Yeah. I mean, for, you know, experienced pilots, you can do it. Yeah, you don't wanna do that if you're just starting out on floats, but.
16:39 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
16:39 Speaker 04 Yeah, you always wanna take off into the wind is preferred.
16:42 Steven Rinella? Well, sometimes when you come in here, you circle.
16:45 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:45 Steven Rinella? What are you doing?
16:46 Speaker 04 Looking for debris.
16:47 Steven Rinella? Oh, that's what you're, you're scouting for debris?
16:49 Speaker 04 Logs and.
16:50 Steven Rinella? I always pick you up there calculating wind directions. You're just looking, is it clear?
16:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
16:54 Steven Rinella? Got it, got it, got it.
16:56 Speaker 04 Yeah. That, that and also the wind, but I can usually tell the wind before I get here. I've been in here so much, but yeah. I can usually tell the wind from a distance after you've been flying for a while. But that's the biggest thing on floats is, um, reading the water and knowing where the wind's coming from.
17:13 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
17:13 Speaker 04 What it's doing, so.
17:15 Steven Rinella? What's the, uh, uh, what's the worst thing clients can do when you charter a flight? Like, what's the most annoying thing passengers do?
17:23 Speaker 04 Um, put a camera right in my face.
17:25 Steven Rinella? Yeah, but next to that. I know that's the worst. That's, that's, that's him, you know?
17:29 Speaker 04 Or touch the controls.
17:30 Steven Rinella? Like, I understand your policy, once, once a guy, not an interview person, but once a camera guy.
17:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:36 Steven Rinella? Points a camera at you, he's done, right? He's, he's, he's to a new air carrier?
17:40 Speaker 04 Well, no, it, it's not necessarily that. It's like, if, if they have, if they ask first and like, you know, I'm gonna, can I film you? That's fine, but, but when I start a takeoff roll and they stick a camera in my face.
17:51 Steven Rinella? Oh, you don't like that?
17:51 Speaker 04 Yeah, when they.
17:52 Steven Rinella? Have I done that? I haven't done that.
17:55 Speaker 04 It's gonna be like, you know, I need to see where I'm going. You're obstructing my view for one, you know?
17:59 Steven Rinella? You know, one of the funniest things I've seen you do?
18:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:01 Steven Rinella? Funny to me. We're taking off out of your, out of your shop.
18:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:05 Steven Rinella? Your hangar. And we're like, coming out of your hangar and coming out into the, I mean, just for people listening. Where Vance's hangar is, when he comes out of there, there's like, commercial airline traffic.
18:19 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:19 Steven Rinella? I mean, different, but I mean, it's like, it's a busy airspace.
18:21 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:22 Steven Rinella? There's other float planes, there's the airport. My neighbor, I had my neighbor with me. And, and it was like, you were coming out and because you're flying, like, you just gotta see what's going on. I remember you reaching forward, reaching and grabbing my neighbor, he was leaning forward to look at something. I remember you doing this.
18:37 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:38 Steven Rinella? Cause you needed to check for traffic.
18:39 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:42 Steven Rinella? It was like needing a car, you know, you're like, I need to look out that way, see what's going on before I pull out.
18:47 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:48 Steven Rinella? So that, and then what, what kind of, what's the dumbest question you ever gotten about, from when you're flying with somebody?
18:53 Speaker 04 Oh geez, I don't know. There's lots of them.
18:55 Steven Rinella? Well, too many to name.
18:56 Speaker 04 Yeah, too many to name. Like, people that are off a ship still ask, what's that, what's that, what's the elevation, you know?
19:05 Steven Rinella? At the ocean?
19:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, they get off a cruise ship and then they, you're on your float plane, on the same body of water, and they'll ask what the elevation is on this lake. Like, well, you're on the ocean still.
19:17 Steven Rinella? You're at, you're at zero.
19:20 Speaker 04 I tell them like, four feet, cause they're about six feet, I was sitting off four feet.
19:24 Steven Rinella? That's how high they are?
19:25 Speaker 04 Off the water, yeah.
19:26 Steven Rinella? Here's, here's my, here's my last question for you, cause this is a fantasy I have. Well, first I'll start it up with a story. I was just in Africa with my family, and we were flying in small aircraft. We were flying in caravans.
19:37 Speaker 04 Yeah.
19:38 Steven Rinella? A lot of caravans here. So my boy, my older boy, uh, fifteen year old, he, sitting up front.
19:45 Speaker 04 Right.
19:46 Steven Rinella? Okay, he fancies himself that, just by observing a pilot, he's got it.
19:51 Speaker 04 Yeah.
19:52 Steven Rinella? Okay. So we get on another plane, and my little boy, who's ten, gets invited to ride up front.
19:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
19:59 Steven Rinella? And, and um, my older boy then, who's miffed, cause he likes to be up front.
20:03 Speaker 04 Right.
20:04 Steven Rinella? He says, well, a lot of good is gonna do us having him up front. If something were to happen to the pilot.
20:11 Speaker 04 Is your older boy thinks he can fly it?
20:13 Steven Rinella? Cause he's after observing, he's like, I'm cool. Like if this guy has a heart attack, I'm cool. What uh, like, what I sit there and always thinking like, let's say, I don't know, Vance uh, has a massive heart attack and, and, and dies. You know, what am I gonna do? Is it like, odd, like, people have this fantasy. I don't know if you know this, but people have this fantasy. We joke about it. Is anyone ever that's never flown? Gonna like, get the hang of it in time to figure it out?
20:43 Speaker 04 I don't know. It depends on the person, I think, you know? I mean, like, if they're uh, you know, if they've grown up operating things, like boats and cars and, you know, they're mechanically, you know? They might.
20:57 Steven Rinella? Like, you might be up there and fiddle around enough to get where you could at least
21:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:01 Steven Rinella? survive the landing.
21:02 Speaker 04 Yeah. Possibly, yeah.
21:04 Steven Rinella? You hear that, Seth?
21:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:10 Steven Rinella? Just hearing that, I asked him what he's always doing up here, and now I understand that.
21:14 Speaker 04 Yeah.
21:14 Steven Rinella? You got this little Vance has this little thing he likes to fiddle with right here. I didn't think it did anything, but it does. It has something.
21:22 Speaker 04 Trim wheel. It's a trim. Yeah.
21:24 Steven Rinella? I just thought he likes doing it. Cause it never feels like anything happened.
21:27 Speaker 04 That's because I'm holding pressure on the yoke. And you know, you don't feel that. I feel it. And then I take the pressure off with this and I can release the pressure on my, on my arms. Yeah, so.
21:37 Steven Rinella? So uh, what's an old pilot? When are you too old to fly?
21:44 Speaker 04 I don't know. Seventy, sixty?
21:47 Steven Rinella? Sixty?
21:47 Speaker 04 I'm joking. No, I'm almost sixty already. No, I don't know. Uh, I think as long as you're, you feel healthy enough to do it, you know? Um, I think, you know, the airlines, I think the cutoff is sixty-five, I think.
21:59 Steven Rinella? Okay. But you could do this later?
22:01 Speaker 04 Oh, I could do it. Yeah.
22:03 Steven Rinella? You can be licensed to keep flying.
22:05 Speaker 04 Yeah, in my seventies, eighties, probably if I wanted to, but yeah, I don't think I want to go that long.
22:10 Steven Rinella? So do you like, do you like the stress of being your own guy? Your own plane, your own guy, handling your own business? Do you prefer that stress over the stress of being in charge of a big operation with tons of planes and tons of pilots? Probably different stresses, but both stressful.
22:25 Speaker 04 I prefer this.
22:26 Steven Rinella? Really? Is it more peaceful being a lone operator?
22:30 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, you're working hard, but it's like you're, you're doing it for yourself, though. You know what I mean? Just like any self-employed person, right? It's a little more satisfaction in, in your job, you know? Cause it's, you're not, you're not doing it for him or them, you're doing it for you.
22:46 Steven Rinella? But man, you got, when it's a busy time of year, man, you got long days.
22:50 Speaker 04 Yeah.
22:51 Steven Rinella? For instance, I knew you had all, I knew all kinds of junk you do every night. I had no idea that every night you got to wash the plane.
22:58 Steven Rinella? To get the salt water off.
22:59 Speaker 04 I have help, I do have.
23:00 Steven Rinella? You do have help back, okay, yeah.
23:01 Speaker 04 Ariana's helping me this summer, she's great.
23:03 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
23:04 Speaker 04 Yeah. Yeah.
23:05 Steven Rinella? It's a, it's a, it's a job, man, it's like.
23:07 Speaker 04 We don't, we don't soap scrub it every night, we at least rinse it off so you get the salt off of it, yeah. But yeah, it's.
23:13 Steven Rinella? But more, I guess my point, rather than just, just simply washing, my point is it's not like when you're done, you like park and walk away.
23:20 Speaker 04 Right.
23:21 Steven Rinella? There's a lot.
23:22 Speaker 04 Right.
23:22 Steven Rinella? And then every blank hours, you gotta do this, and every blank hours, you gotta do that.
23:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's any, but it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a short season, you know? It's pretty hectic, but, you know, in another two months, it'll be, you know, really slow.
23:39 Steven Rinella? Yeah, you got time to take care of stuff.
23:41 Speaker 04 Yeah.
23:41 Steven Rinella? Yeah. So tell people, so you fly anything within how many miles of Catch Can? What's the farthest you roam?
23:47 Speaker 04 Um, longest charter I've done is probably up to Juneau.
23:51 Steven Rinella? Okay.
23:52 Speaker 04 Yeah. Two and a half hours, you know, so.
23:56 Steven Rinella? Now, I know people, um, I know people that are pilots.
24:02 Steven Rinella? Who say that they like to fly with you because you're such an exceptional pilot.
24:06 Speaker 04 Oh, well, thanks. Whoever they are.
24:08 Steven Rinella? Captain Mac.
24:09 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
24:11 Steven Rinella? Captain Mac is a pilot.
24:12 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:12 Steven Rinella? And he's like, that's my pilot. He likes you. So, Black Rock Aviation, that's a little bit of a glimpse into the life of a float plane pilot. A lot of people have dreams of coming out and being pilots.
24:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:26 Steven Rinella? I, I, I, uh, I don't. I had it and I just realized it's probably better to charter a plane.
24:34 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:34 Steven Rinella? You know, I used to think like, I'm gonna get my own plane. And now I'm like, no, you're not.
24:38 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:38 Steven Rinella? You're gonna fly with me.
24:39 Speaker 04 It's a commitment.
24:40 Steven Rinella? Yeah.
24:40 Speaker 04 You're gonna do it, you know?
24:41 Steven Rinella? Commitment.
24:42 Speaker 04 Yeah. If you're gonna do that.
24:44 Steven Rinella? So, Black Rock Aviation out of Ketchikan, Alaska, um, Vance.
24:49 Speaker 04 Robertus.
24:50 Steven Rinella? Robertus, I'll never remember that dude. Vance Robertus, uh, sole proprietor pilot, uh, private, owns his own plane, flies around.
24:59 Speaker 04 A mechanic too.
25:00 Steven Rinella? Mechanic too, flies around beautiful Alaska, um, getting everybody to their fishing spots on time.
25:06 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's what we try to do.
25:08 Steven Rinella? Thanks, thanks for doing the interview, man. I appreciate it.
25:10 Speaker 04 No problem.
25:11 Steven Rinella? All right. Thank you, everybody.
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