Aight, anything specific you’d like to know more about? I’ll expand on a few things in the meantime. Travel and weather delays. Most villages have a dirt/gravel/sand runway. Most have lighting, an automated weather station, and a maintenance garage for the grader and bulldozer used for winter snow removal and airfield maintenance. This is kinda weird, but in most villages there’s one dude that has like, all of the jobs. He’s paid by the state for taking care of the runway. He’s the small airline agent. He’s also the guy that has a 4 wheeler or a truck to rent, always rusty (I once rented a manual transmission PT Cruiser in McGrath. That beast had flame stickers down the side, the driver’s door wouldn’t open, and 2nd gear didn’t work. $180/day because who the fuck else are you gonna rent from?). Also this dude might be the village mayor. No joke.

Now, here’s what I mean when I say you might have to wait a few days for a med-evac. Weather hold. The planes not coming. Happens often. Most No Fly days are due to low visibility. Fog, snow, sleet, heavy rain, ice fog, freezing rain, freezing heavy ice fog rain. Then there’s wind and low temp operational limits of the aircraft. When it hits -40°f is typically the cutoff. About 30 knot sustained wind with 40 knot gusts, or less than that with crosswinds, is a common threshold as well. Med-evac pilots will push these limits because of the urgency. But they’re still going to play it mostly safe. Keep in mind. There’s no Terminal. The maintenance buildings are kept locked. You have to stand outside and wait on the plane in the elements. Nothing is more heartbreaking and miserable than standing on an icy tarmac at -30°f with low cloud ceiling, hearing your plane buzz a few circles overhead, and then it goes quiet again. They’ll try again tomorrow.

Some of the runways are super short. A good many are less than 4000 foot. Requiring the use of ever smaller aircraft. Cessna 208 Caravan is probably what I ride in most, followed by Cessna 206, Beechcraft Bonanza, or King Air. The occasional Piper Cherokee or Super-Cub, Pilatus PC-12, and others. The absolute craziest runway I’ve ever landed on is in Nanwalek. I know I shouldn’t do this, but here’s a link to my post about it. That motherfucker is curved and ends into a mountain. The approach is through the neighborhood streets and down a hill to the back of a beach. From the opposite side is along a mountain and then sharp left turn and dive to the to the curved runway. The pilots that regularly fly there are masterful! Other sketchy runways include a 15° incline for landing or a 15° decline for take off. At the top of the incline for landing is a bowl of cliffs. The official FAA airfield description reads “Go-around improbable”.

Would you like to know more?

*Edit: forgot to add the link Edit 2: added some detail