PALMER - Erika Bennett doesn’t think of herself as a woman pilot.
She’s a pilot, period.
After seven summers spent flying tourists out of Talkeetna for K2 Aviation, the 36-year-old Bennett just started a new job piloting a Beaver and an Aero Commander for the state Department of Forestry out of Palmer. Once fire season starts, Bennett will carry people and supplies to support wildland firefighting efforts around the state. She still hopes to work for K2 later this season, if needed.
Daughter of a U.S. Navy aviator, Bennett was a baby in Kodiak, spent a couple of years in Barrow and in 1974 moved to Anchorage. She graduated from Service High School, then studied journalism and public communication at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
At 25, she shifted gears. Three months after deciding she wanted to fly, Bennett got her pilot’s license.
Bennett also placed second runner-up in the Mrs. Alaska pageant last year. She was in pretty good shape when she entered, seeing as she’d just come off an extended volunteer patrol trip on Mount McKinley - she and her husband, Ross, got to 17,200 feet before winds turned their group around. She’s hoping for better this year. Her mother won the competition in 1980.
Bennett splits her time between Anchorage and a cabin in Talkeetna, though she and her husband - an aircraft mechanic with a Cessna 180 - own two other properties around Wasilla. She owns a Piper PA-11 and was in January elected to the Alaska Airman’s Association Board of Directors.
Bennett talked about flying, “girl pilots,” and the wonders of airplane camping during a recent interview at the state forestry hangar.
Q. Did you start flying when you were young?
A. I wish I would have. I grew up in an airplane. We were lucky enough to have an airplane in the family. Though I did a lot of flying, I did not learn how to fly until I was 25.
I had a different career in mind. I wanted to get into the film and television industry. ... I started in high school as a production assistant and gofer, worked into wardrobe, makeup, production, coordinating on commercials and movies that came to town through Alaska Film Group.
Q. Any we’d recognize?
A. “North,” the movie. The movie “Alaska.” And “50 First Dates” - they did the very last scene up here in Alaska.
Q. So what was the tipping point that sent you toward aviation after all?
A. I wanted to stay in Alaska. The film and television industry is a hard one to make a full-time living at in Alaska. I actually got to ride in an airplane on a film shoot ... although airplanes weren’t strangers to me, one particular airplane ride in a Super Cub happened to tip the scales. After that airplane ride I told myself, 'I’ve got to learn how to do this.’
Q. What was it about that ride?
A. The pilot let me drive for a while ... in a Super Cub when you’re driving, you don’t have anyone sitting next to you. I liked the feeling of freedom. That was in 1995, fall. I got my private license in November of 1995.
Q. OK, let’s get your jobs straight ...
A. I’m officially a full-time pilot for the forestry department, which is a seasonal full-time job. I have worked for K2 ... and then I also am a part-time pilot, contract pilot, for Shared Services Aviation (a joint unit owned by BP and Conoco Phillips that flies people and supplies to and from the North Slope).
Q. So I assume you are the only female pilot...
A. At Conoco I’m not the only woman pilot; they do have a female pilot. There was a joke on the Slope that when she and I flew together, we were the first unmanned flight.
I have a lot of female pilot friends. Some of them take the “girl pilot” thing in stride and blow it off, and I’m learning to do that myself. Some of them have a huge chip on their shoulder.
Q. How often do you get that, from men, I assume?
A. It’s about 50-50, men and women. The highest number is from scenic passengers, tourists from Outside. I haven’t had a single comment from Shared Services or here. It’s no big deal; I’m just a pilot. They know that I’m a professional. They just assume I know what I’m doing.
I’ve done tours for seven years out of Talkeetna. The greatest number of comments, questions, and concerns literally are people from Outside who are expecting a burly bush pilot.
Q. Has a tourist ever not wanted to fly because ...
A. Yes ... They didn’t think I was strong enough to pull them from the wreckage.
Q. So not only did they think you were weak, they thought you were going to crash the plane?
A. It’s one of the stranger circumstances I’ve come up against. It’s one of the few that have shocked me.
Q. Where do you fly for fun?
A. My husband and I enjoy going down to Montague Island in our airplanes, landing on the beach. We have gone deer hunting and fishing. Also in spring we do tend to use our airplanes to go someplace to do something else. Sometimes we will go for a joyride. But we’re outdoorspeople. One of our first dates, we flew down to St. Augustine, landed on the beach, climbed the volcano. We went back to the planes, flew back to the beach and camped on the beach on the other side. Airplane camping is way better than car camping.
I like to use my airplane in winter to go skiing. I’m a climber, I like to mountaineer. I don’t typically go climbing with my airplane because that involves leaving it someplace and that’s just dumb.
Q. Does your plane have a name?
A. No. My first plane did.
Q. What was your first plane’s name?
A. Tweety Bird. (Laughs) It was a Post-It Note yellow Citabria and it looked like a flying bathtub.
Contact Daily News reporter Zaz Hollander at zhollander@adn.com. or 352-6711.
