Alaska Dispatch

Alaska Air National Guardsmen from the 212th took off for Bagram Air Base on Tuesday, where they will start their mission of providing search and rescue capabilities.

The Dispatch has been running tons of aviation news over the past week, but I haven't had time to copy it over to Bush Pilot. Chalk it up to the downside of having your blog's editor cover politics in a topsy-turvy election season.

The last couple of days we've fought the weather a bit. It's a typical fall season in Alaska and nothing is a "gimme". Our margins are narrow enough that it does not take much weather to knock us out of the game and send us whining back towards the house.

Tuesday morning U.S. Sen. Mark Begich and FAA head Randy Babbitt announced the grants, which include $30 million for Sitka and $20.5 million for Chefornak, at the UAA Aviation Technology Center.

Craig Medred reports on the dimming hopes and ongoing search for the deHavilland Beaver that went missing Saturday somewhere in the Katmai National Park and Preserve.

"Buddy are you still out there?" John Graybill radioed to a plane shadowing him through a stormy passage just minutes before he lost contact and his plane slammed into the ground en route to McGrath, according to the NTSB.

Great footage from around Western Alaska set to a friend of Father Scott's singing Ave Maria. In this video he shows off some of the mountain passes he braves and some of the gorgeous scenery he enjoys.

Alaska Dispatch staff writer Craig Medred lays out Graybill's life, including his (pre-arrest) torching of his plane, his poaching, and his near-drowning when he crashed a Cub into the ocean near Kodiak.