In 2008, Alaskan Troy Hamon set out to fly his newly purchased airplane, a 1951 Piper Tri-Pacer, from Ohio to his home in King Salmon. This decision was fraught with particular difficulty as Hamon had yet to even take his first solo flight. Enlisting the assistance of his brother Quinn, a freight pilot who is also a flight instructor, they embarked on a two-week adventure flying across the western U.S. and Canada. Along the way, the brothers encountered good weather and bad, got a little bit lost and saw some spectacular scenery while Hamon worked, again and again, on his landings. He also kept a diary of the trip, which he used while writing "14 Days to Alaska," a thoroughly engaging and often humorous look at what cross-country flying is all about.
Hamon is a field scientist who was bit by the flying bug after becoming immersed in Alaska's aviation-heavy environment. He admits early on that typically people at least solo before they purchase a plane, but with few opportunities for instruction in King Salmon, he decided to take the plunge and learn to fly during the trip.
Settling in beside Quinn for takeoff from tiny Newark-Heath airport in Columbus, Hamon got a crash course from his brother on all that he did not know, starting with how to taxi. Hamon writes:
I had, one time previously, handled the controls of a small private airplane during taxi, which had seemed very foreign as I'd never in my life steered with my feet before. I still wasn't having an easy time of it on this second attempt, either. I kept grabbing for the steering wheel, which is actually a control yoke and not really a wheel.
"Take your hand off the yoke, you don't handle an airplane with that on the ground."
"Take your hand off the yoke."
And again, the next time my hand strayed up there ... "Take your hand off the yoke."
Hamon does get better at taxiing, and his landings improve as well, though he struggles to perfectly hold his altitude on every leg of the journey. None of this will be a surprise for his fellow pilots, all of whom will surely recall their own shaky moments as student pilots while reading. It is the author's sense of humor, though, that resonates most strongly, as in his recollection of his first night landing in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho:
The pattern went okay, for change, then base and final. Everything looking pretty good. Here comes the runway, pull back...
"Not so fast!!!" Quinn said, sounding rather urgent.
Then we fell out of the sky.
...oops!...
It was probably only six or eight feet, but it was my hardest landing. What Quinn had been trying to convey to me, in the half-second after I had already screwed up, was not to pull back so fast. As I said before...oops. And I had been doing so well!
While the text is peppered with black-and-white photos of the trip and comments on both the scenery and some of the folks the brothers meet along the way, the bulk of the narrative focuses on Hamon's observations about flying and the lessons he learns, including how to handle an engine loss on takeoff.
By the time they reached Anchorage, where his brother catches a scheduled flight home, Hamon had logged over 50 hours and feels comfortable in the cockpit. He still needed an instructor to get back to King Salmon, but after solving that unplanned problem -- the brothers had hoped to overcome some delays and finish together but weather in Northway dashed that dream -- he makes it to his final destination and settles in to earn his private pilot's license and begin truly flying on his own.
It should comes as no surprise that the best-laid plans for that final achievement also meet a few unexpected hurdles. But eventually, as he highlights in the last few pages, 16 months after landing in King Salmon, Troy Hamon becomes a licensed pilot. By then, readers will have become so at home with this pilot and author, having laughed with him, shared his moments of trepidation and also his insights into Alaska and flying, that they will be cheered to know he did it --and fulfilled his dream at last.
"14 Days to Alaska" can be purchased online and at bookstores in Alaska.
Contact Colleen Mondor at colleen(at)alaskadispatch.com