The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 751: The Alaskan Bush Pilot

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Steven Rinella 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.  Connect with Steve and The MeatEater Podcast Network Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The season opener sale runs now through August 20. only at store. Themeatater.com. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this, we're going to call this an Alaska FWOP. This is a FWOP episode, meaning we record it. It comes right out. And we're in Alaska, so it's an Alaska FWOP. And I'm here with my friend, and I like to think of them as my personal pilot. Vance, here's a Robertus. Robertus. Okay. We always call you Robertus. Hey, I knew Vance is, Vance is a float plane pilot. This is his float plane right here. This is a personal plane. You'd call him like a, you're a bush pilot.

Yeah. Like an 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. Right. Right. You've been flying for how many years?

Float planes, 23 years. How long flying in general? About 30. Yeah. Born in Nebraska? Colorado. Oh, Colorado. Yeah.

Lived in Nebraska for a while. Okay. Yeah. Born in Colorado, lived in Nebraska. Came in Alaska at what age? I was probably about 35, 36 somewhere now. Okay. Had you always know when you wanted to fly?

Yeah. Yeah. I just kind of grew up out in rural areas and, like, the, just watching crop dusters and stuff. Oh, that's how you got interested. Yeah. So at what point, if you wanted to be a pilot and you want to, you know, and you love remote areas, and you like to hunt and you like to fish, yeah. At what point in your life, at what age is you be like, man, if you're going to do it, do it in Alaska?

And what dream of that part of it? I worked for, for, for, the airlines is that. aircraft mechanic for several years before I finished all my ratings. The big airlines. Yeah, I worked for Continental Airlines way back when and... Rinching on airplanes. Yeah, yeah. I worked for Boeing. Anyway, I saw all those guys that, you know, dragging the black suitcases around and

none of them were smiling. Yeah. So it's like living out of a suitcase and the ones I knew were all divorced or you know, going through a divorce. Drinking in hotel bars every night? Oh, yeah. I'm like, yeah, I don't think I want to do that route, but I want to fly. And then I had my private's light. Actually, I had my commercial rating.

And then I went and got a float plane ad on. And I'm like, okay, that's it. That's what I want to do. I want to fly floats. I kind of knew I wanted to do that. But getting in the door somewhere to do it, it's the tough part. What do you mean? Getting the hours before someone will even put you in the seat.

Oh, I mean like to hire you, you got to have hours, commercial hours. You got to have float time. You got to have Alaska time. You got to have. you know all this everyone has all these requirements but got you so it takes a while to get you need to have the job to get the job right you got to start somewhere else usually in alaska like flying wheels or something i see okay i flew out of bethel you know fairbanks for a year and then racked up a bunch hours up there and then i got back down here as a to fly floats and this is like this is like the

world's capital float plane activity southeast alaska i i don't know if it is anymore it used to be um lake hood's pretty busy with float planes too up in anchorage and stuff okay got it yeah there's not as much industry as they used to be here as far as like commercial industry there's there's a there's a tourism but there used to be a lot of logging camps and stuff and that kept float planes real busy almost year round got it got it so as that is that industry dried up that's affected how many float plane operators are working and how many hours you can get i would say so yeah your guys aren't flying as many hours as they used to yeah unless you're hauling uh unless you have the mail contracts or something like

that and a ton of guys like a ton of guys in your occupation do flight seeing right 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 right yeah you don't do as many flight seeing tours as you do kind of like working working operations right i'll do yeah fishing lodges and and you know with cabins like you remote stuff yeah um hunters yeah stuff like that but uh yeah everyone has to do tours to just fill in the gaps and make some extra extra money for the air you know so how do you here's the thing that often comes up and 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

real quick. Like, you guys are flying by, you're not instrument flying. No. You're flying by what you can see. Visual, yeah. Visual flight rules. Visual flight rules. So, like, how, because it's the, anytime I'll talk to people and be like, oh, yeah, we have a cabin, we go out to our cabin, we charter a plane. And people always comment on, like, what is the risk? 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 you have to know in your career a lot of pilots

who've had wrecks some survived had wrecks and some died how do you begin to think about it if you're not thinking about it or about the risk if you don't have a little bit of a you know

if something doesn't scare you anymore 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 oh you think so yeah yeah i mean there's that's risk out here you know i mean but 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 but you have like we go or we don't go right right yeah yeah but there's still always that you know like yeah that gut feelings like yeah nope not going to do that uh you got you got to listen to that do you get you get like a do you get like a feeling Oh, yeah, you do. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be flying 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. What is the biggest enemy? Is it visibility or wind? It's usually a combination, yeah. It's usually just like wind shear gusts and visibility, yeah. Yeah, a lot of times it's a combination here in Southeast. You get all of it at one time.

You'll get low visibility with gusty winds and just, yeah, it's all, it's all, it can be a combination of it. It could be, I don't know, but the winds are, they could be pretty bad sometimes here, you know, You get up in the 70s and stuff, but yeah, you're not flying during that stuff. 70 miles an hour. Oh, yeah, wintertime, but yeah, we don't fly in that. 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 you're on floats, isn't it some solace that you can always, there's always a place to land, or is it not that simple?

It depends on the water. Yeah, the middle of the straits when it's eight footers. What happens then? You might get it down, but it's... It ain't going to be soft. It can be soft and it may not stay together on you. I see. It may bust apart on you.

So what is the best, how do you describe, like, what kind of seas can you land in or what kind of seas is it become inadvisable? Well, I mean, you can land in two footers pretty easy in this plane, but you start getting bigger than that. It starts, it's pretty rough landing. So like six foot is no good. No, yeah, no good. Yeah.

Because, yeah, there's nothing smooth to hit. No, you're going to hit one wave and go into the next one. Got it, got it, got it. Yeah. The, uh, there's a thing that I used to think it wasn't true about it's got to be true. Okay, we talked about rough weather, rough water. Let's talk about calm water. Yeah.

Is it true that you can have a body of water be so still that you need to create chop? Yeah. 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? Yeah, it's almost like a suction. Yeah, it'll keep you down on the water. You've got to have some ripples sometimes. Like small lake or something that's just flat calm

and you need the whole lake to get off. You'll cut circles. You'll do a circle or two, make some ripples and then when you hit those, boom, you'll pop off the water. Yeah. Because it'll actually like skip you up a little bit. Yeah, it'll break that tension. Yeah.

You can lift one floater at a time too. It's called glassy water. Yeah, it's a thing, yeah. Hey, folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. On-X hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians.

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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 never been for just whatever reason. And you're determining can I land in a lake or not. What are you looking for? Well, you're looking for the size, for one. A lot of times I'll want to, I'll look at maps and, you know, try to. get some measurements. Because you need how many yards water? Oh, probably 900. It's nice to have 900 yards. Okay, so a lot. Yeah, I mean, especially for Lake you haven't been into, right? So then you're also looking for the approach and departure. If there's, is there, is there

terrain, is there trees? Is it, can you come in flat over the creek that it's draining out of it or whatever is there a is it one way in one way out yeah um can you do a step turn in there is it wide enough for that as quite a few variables yeah and then you got to think like you always have to come into the wind not always if you can land down wind but you can land down just um it's going to increase your your your ground run when you touch down can you take off with the wind oh with the tailwind yeah you can yeah i mean for you know experience pilots you can do Yeah, you don't want to do that if you're just starting out on floats, but yeah. Yeah, you always want to take off into the wind is preferred.

Well, sometimes when you come in here, you circle. Yeah. What are you doing? Looking for debris. Oh, that's what you're scouting for debris. Logs and... I always pick you up there calculating wind directions. You're just looking, is it clear?

Yeah. Got it, got it, got it. Yeah. 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, you can usually tell the wind from a distance after you've been flying for a while but that's the biggest thing that floats is um reading the water and knowing where the wind's coming from what it's doing so what's the uh what's the worst thing clients can do when you charter a flight like what's the most annoying thing passengers do um put a camera right in my

face yeah yeah next of that i know that's the worst that's that's that's you know or touch the controls like i understand your policy once once a guy yeah not an interview person but once a camera guy points of camera you he's done right he's to a new air carrier well no it's not necessarily that it's like if they have if they ask first and like you know I'm gonna can I film you that's fine but

but I started a takeoff roll and they stick a camera in my face well you don't like that yeah have I done that I've done that it's gonna be like you know I need to see where I'm going

you're instructing my view for one you know you know the funniest things I've seen you do funny to me we're taking off out of your out of your shop your hangar and we're like coming out of your hangar

coming out into the I mean just for people listen where Vance's hangar is when he comes out of there there's like commercial airline traffic

yeah I mean different but I mean it's like it's a busy airspace yeah there's other float planes there's the airport my neighbor

I had my neighbor with me and it was like you were coming out because you're flying like you just got to see what's going on I remember you're reaching forward reaching

and grabbing my neighbor he was leaning forward to look at something i remember you doing this because you needed to check for traffic yeah it was like needed a car you know you're like i need to look out that way to see what's going on for i pull out yeah so that and then what kind of what's the dumbest question you've ever gotten about from when you're flying with somebody oh geez i don't know there's lots of them about too many the name yeah too many the name like people that are off a ship so last what's that what's that what's the elevation you know at the ocean yeah they get off a cruise

ship and then 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 you're got out of that ship right there you're at zero I tell I'm like four feet because that's about six feet I was sitting off that's how high they are off the water yeah here's here's my here's my last question for you because this is a fantasy I have Well, first I'll set it up with a story. I was just in Africa with my family. We were flying in small aircraft. We were flying in caravans.

Yeah. A lot of caravans here. So my boy, my older boy, 15-year-old, he's sitting up front. Right. Okay. He fancies himself that just by observing a pilot, he's got it. Yeah. Okay.

So we get on another plane, and my little boy, who's 10, gets invited to ride up front. Yeah. And my older boy, then, who's Miffed, because he likes to be up front. Right. He says, well, a lot of good it's going to do is having him up front. If something were to happen to the pilot. Because your older boy thinks he can fly it. Because he's, after observing, he's like, I'm cool.

Like, if this guy has a heart attack, I'm cool. What, like, what I sit there and always thinking, like, let's say, I don't know, Vance has a massive heart attack and dies. you know, what am I going to do? Is it like, 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 going to, like, get the hang of it in time to figure it out? I don't know. It depends on the person, I think, you know. I mean, like, if they're, you know, if they've grown up operating things, like boats and cars and, you know, they're mechanically, you know, they might.

Like you might be up there and fiddle around enough to get where you could at least Yeah Survive the landing Yeah possibly yeah You hear that Seth? Yeah Yeah Yeah you know you don't You don't want to ask him what he's always doing up here and now I understand that

Yeah you wouldn't want to like he's 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 to do it trim wheel it's a trim yeah I just thought he likes doing it because it never feels like anything happened Yeah, that's because I'm holding pressure on the yoke, and 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 arms, yeah. So, what's an old pilot? When are you too old to fly? I don't know, 70, 60? 60?

I'm joking, no. I'm almost 60 already. No, I don't know. I think as long as you're, you feel healthy enough to do it, you know? I think, you know, the airlines, I think the cutoff is 65, I think. Okay, but you could do this later? Oh, I could do it, yeah. You could be licensed and keep flying.

Yeah, into my 70s, 80s probably if I wanted to, but yeah, I don't think I want to go that long. So 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? It's probably different stresses, but both stressful. I prefer this. Really? Is it more peaceful being a loan operator? Yeah, I mean, you're working hard, but it's like 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 your job, you know? No. Because you're not doing it for him or them. You're doing it for you. But, man, you got, when it's a busy time of year, man, you've got long days. Yeah.

For instance, I knew you. 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 to get the salt water off. I have help. I do have. You do have help back. Okay. Ariana's helping me the summer.

She's great. Yeah. Yeah. It's a job, man. We don't, we don't soap scrubbing every night. We at least rinse it off, so you get the salt off of it. Yeah. But, yeah, I guess my point rather than just simply washing my point is it's not like when you're done, you like park and walk away.

Right. There's a lot. Right. And then every blank hours, you got to do this. And every blank hours, you got to do that. Yeah, that's any. But it's, you know, 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. Yeah, you got time to take care of stuff. Yeah. So tell people, so you fly anything within how many miles of catch can. What's the fire that you roam? Longest charter I've done is probably up to Juneau. Yeah. Yeah, it's like two and a half hours, you know, so.

Now, I know people, I know people that are pilots who say that they like to fly with you because you're such an exceptional pilot. Oh, well, thanks, whoever they are. Captain Mack? Oh, yeah. Yeah. A lot of people have dreams are coming out and being pilots.

Yeah. I don't. I had it, and I just realized that it's probably better just the charter of a plane. Yeah. Yeah. I used to think, like, I'm going to get my own plane, and I'm like, no, you're not.

You're going to fly with Vance. It's a commitment. Yeah. You're going to do it. Commitment. Yeah. If you're going to do that. So Black Rock Aviation out to catch Canalaska. Vance.

Robertus. Robert. I'll never remember that, dude. Vanceville Bird is sole proprietor, pilot, private, owns his own plane, flies around. I'm a mechanic, too. Mechanic, too. Flies around beautiful Alaska. Getting everybody to their fishing spots on time. Yep.

That's what we try to do. Thanks for doing the interview, man. I appreciate it. No problem. All right. Thank you, everybody. Oh, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient. Still using yesterday's tech, upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Ultra Light, Ultra Powerful,

and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed, and AI-powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around. Whoa, this thing moves. Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at Lenovo.com. Lenovo, Lenovo. Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create, and boost productivity all on one device.

Hey, it's the Meat Eater, buy a tea, get a tea sale. Plus, you can save on all kinds of gear from August 19th to 24. For a limited time, buy one meat eater graphic tea, get another one free. While you're over there, you can load up and save on. on gear we trust in the field, including Yeti Coolers and Drinkwear, Moultrie trail cams, premium optics, knives from Montana Knife Company, and more. The season opener sale runs now through August 24th, only at store.com. This is an iHeart podcast.