This is a city of pilots, and I was riding with one of the best. In America’s last frontier, a state that you could fit Texas into twice and still have plenty of room left over, things aren’t often close at hand. So here in Anchorage, the easiest solution is often this: just fly.
A Rust’s Flying Service float plane departs Lake Hood in Anchorage, Alaska. (Roy Neese/Visit Anchorage)
Alaska has the largest per capita number of pilots in the United States (six times more than the national average), and this little lake alone is home to 1,100 planes, 1,000 of them privately owned. Brian Carlin’s regular gig is flying a medivac helicopter, which can be a bit stressful, although you wouldn’t know it when you chat with him. “It’s rooftop to rooftop stuff,” he said, rather nonchalantly, in that trademark, super-calm pilot’s drawl. But lately, he’s also been flying visitors around in a float plane, and, today, Carlin was ready to show me everything that’s so remarkably close to the glassy skyline downtown….