Touching down in Ketchikan, Alaska, last week, Michael Combs and the Flight for the Human Spirit finished up one of the most challenging parts of the epic journey.
Combs and copilot Bob Warner flew into the northern territories in Canada to make their way along a 1,200-nautical-mile segment to Ketchikan. Warner accompanied sport pilot Combs as pilot in command because he has a private certificate and a medical. “Alaska was a big, big piece of this puzzle, and to touch down in Alaska was fantastic,” Combs said in his podcast.
They spent just a short time in Alaska because of a very brief window of good weather that would have permitted them to return to the United States, Combs said. En route to Ketchikan, he and Warner spent three days in Prince George, British Columbia, waiting out the weather. Local pilots and others familiar with flying in this part of the country told Combs that above all, when flying in Canada and Alaska, one must be patient. “That’s good advice for everything we do in life,” he said, but it was especially important to keep safe and not to push the weather.
This week Combs and the Remos GX light sport aircraft will travel to Idaho, which is actually the forty-ninth state in the flight’s mission to land in all 50 states, and then to Lake Havasu, Ariz. Still to come is Hawaii. It is unclear how the Remos GX will get to Hawaii, but Combs said he’s optimistic that a solution will present itself.
You can follow the Flight for the Human Spirit via the website or AOPA Online.
Jill W. Tallman
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