It's Been Sounding Like Last Summer In Anchorage

I noticed we had planes flying over our house again last week.  Lots of them.  Last summer was the

From my backyard today

second summer of widening the North-South runway at the Anchorage Airport.  Thus all the planes took off to the east - over probably half the population of Anchorage.  But that was supposed to leave us with quiet summers.

Yesterday I talked to Terri Tibbe, Operations Airport Operations Manager.  There are two basic reasons for the noise:

• Seasonal Maintenance 
• Every year there is some maintenance of the runways - repainting, striping.  And that was happening yesterday.
• Winds Aloft
• She described these as winds above ground level but low enough to affect planes taking off.  The pattern recently has dictated planes taking off to the east.  

In addition, she pointed out that 6-8 weeks ago there has been an increase in cargo flights and they are bigger and heavier than passenger planes and make more noise as they take off.

The airport controls the maintenance, but FAA makes decisions about wind affecting take-off direction.

I did google 'winds aloft' because I didn't quite catch what Terri said.   So, for instance, I found this map of winds aloft 200 MB for Alaska for June 17.

But what does this mean?  There were several other charts available at different MB levels.

"'bar' is the unit by which we measure pressure."

The lower the millibars the lower the pressure and the higher the altitude.  So the 200 MB is at a much higher altitude than the 850 MB chart, which is the lowest they show.    Here's the same location, same time, but for the 850 MB

"Constant Pressure Charts: 850 mb
This pressure level is near an elevation of 5,000 feet though it ranges from 3,800 feet (1,170 meters) to 5,200 feet (1,590 meters). As with all other constant pressure charts the heights are in meters with the last digit (zero) truncated. So, a height value of 132 represents 1,320 meters."

So the wind directions and speeds vary significantly at different altitudes.


And here's a bit more to help understand symbols on the maps above.

Wind Speed

When the height contours (lines) are close to each other, it means there is a more rapid change in altitude of the constant pressure level, and indication of a large temperature gradient.

As the temperature gradient increases (more rapid change) so does the pressure gradient. Wind is created when there is a pressure gradient, and the stronger the gradient the stronger the wind.

Wind speeds on weather maps are in knots (kt) where one knot equals 1.15 mph and 1.85 km/h. Toggle the "Wind Barbs" check box to display the speed and direction of the wind across the map.

The wind barbs indicate wind direction and wind speed (rounded to the nearest 5 knots). The longest line (shaft) points in the direction FROM which that wind is blowing.

The shorter lines, called barbs, indicate the wind speed in knots (kt). The speed of the wind is determined by the barbs.

Each long barb represents 10 kt with short barbs representing 5 kt. A pennant is used to represent each 50 kt. Total the barbs and pennants to provide the wind speed at that location.

When lines of equal wind speed are drawn (called isotachs) the regions of greater and less wind speed stand out. Isotachs are typically drawn for every 20 kt.

I've gotten myself further into this than I ever intended, but not far enough to understand clearly why the planes are taking off over midtown and whether the wind patterns are going to change soon.  And I know enough to realize that a little knowledge can be a dangerous things.  But it is also the first steps to more knowledge.  But if you go to this page at the Weather Service you can start exploring.  They even have some cool lessons.  

Consequences For Unruly Airline Passengers

I was reading a twitter thread about a journalist who got harangued by her Trump supporting seat mate on a plane ride.  She had the window seat and felt trapped as he ranted about how the media lied and wrote fake news and were the enemy of America.  Fortunately, the flight attendants responded quickly when she rang the alarm button and got her another seat.

But as I thought about it, why she should she have to move?  He's the one who should be inconvenienced for his bad behavior, not her.  He should be moved.  Maybe there should be some 'time-out' seats for such passengers like there is for kids who can't behave.

OK, I understand that airlines aren't going to leave seats unused in this seat-squeezing era.  And often trying to make the belligerent passengers on the plane move can cause them to become more hostile and dangerous.

BUT, such passengers should be guaranteed that they'll get off the plane with a 'no-fly' penalty.  It's something the FAA should enforce across all airlines and the length of the penalty should be appropriate to the disturbance and the passenger's record.  And refusing to move when asked to would surely increase the length on one's ban.  And important people shouldn't be able to get their penalties waived, though if they're wealthy enough they can probably hire private planes.

Are there due process and other legal questions involved here?  Due process surely.  We don't want passengers arbitrarily punished.  Passengers witnessing such a situation should get their phones out and record the incident because sometimes the victim can't while it's happening.

I would guess that being banned from planes is something that doesn't have to go to the courts, but I'm not sure. Not being able to fly might jeopardize some people's jobs, but that seems to be a good  incentive.  But they wouldn't be deprived of 'life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness" as they would with a jail sentence.  Well, maybe it would hinder their pursuit of happiness a bit.  But it seems that people who harass others probably are already having difficulties in their pursuit of happiness.

I'm sure some attorney would find a way to sue on behalf of such a client, but attorneys for the airlines and FAA should be able to  draft a workable policy.  It would include some descriptions of unacceptable behaviors.

The basic violation would be:
Physically or verbally disturb another passenger or passengers after being told to stop.

Then examples of what that looks like and levels of severity would be listed along with the consequences.

Other passengers would be encouraged to record such incidents and to alert flight attendants before it escalates.

These problem passengers would then be added to the no-fly list (probably more reasonably than others have been put on that list.)

After writing this I checked online whether such consequences already exist.  A 2010 NBC article cites a woman who was banned from a flight for using her phone after being told not to (she says was turning it off) :

“The airlines keep their own lists,” Bresson added. And those multiple no-fly lists create “a lot of confusion.”

That uncertainty is shared by officials at the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, a labor union representing more than 50,000 flight attendants at 22 airlines.
“Our (internal) air safety people aren’t even sure if those who have been charged with flight crew interference are even on the list,” said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the AFA. “We would be interested to find out if people who have been charged — not found guilty but just initially charged with flight crew interference — even get on an airline (no-fly) list.”

A 2014 ABC  report says:

"American Airlines spokesperson Josh Freed said the airline has its own no-fly list -- separate from the government's -- that unruly passengers could potentially be added to.
'When we handle cases of disruptive passengers, one option is denying future travel,' Freed said. He stressed that that rarely happens. .  .
Delta Airlines and United Airlines, two other airlines involved in recent flight diversions, did not respond to ABC News' request for comment."

[I'd note that declining to comment sometimes happens because people weren't given enough time before the story aired.  That said, I emailed the media folks at Alaska Airlines on Wednesday May 1, and held up this post hoping I could add their policy on this, but I've heard nothing back.  If I do, I'll add it here or in a new post.]

We Pay More Attention To Stories We Connect With - The Ethiopian Max 8 Plane Crash

The crash of the Ethiopian Airlines plane taking off from Addis Ababa for Nairobi first caught my attention because long ago, I flew from Addis to Nairobi on an Ethiopian Airlines plane.  It was part of flight from New Delhi that eventually got me to Kampala, Uganda.  (I was taking the long way home from Peace Corps Thailand to visit a friend who was teaching in Uganda.)

And my son-in-law just got back from a trip to Nairobi - though not through Addis.

And I've been thinking about how that long ago adventure caused my brain and body to linger on this story.  Human minds steer  us in so many strange ways.

But later I started wondering about whether Alaska Airlines flies 737 MAX planes.

Alaska Airlines website has a page listing all their aircraft.  They say they have 162 Boeing 737 aircraft, but the pictures they have up of 737s are of 737-900ER, 737-900, 737-800, and 737-700 models only.  No 737 MAX planes.


However, according to Airways Magazine in a Feb 19, 2019 article:

As revealed by RoutesOnline, Alaska Airlines has outlined the start of its Boeing 737 MAX 9 network operations, scheduled to begin in July 2019. . .
The carrier converted 15 of its 737 MAX 8s it had on order to the larger MAX 9 variant back in May 2018, bringing the total commitment to 32.
Deliveries are to commence this year through to 2023, according to Boeing and Alaska Airlines.

So if I've got this right, they have some 737 MAX models scheduled to come on line in July this year.  And they changed all their 737 MAX 8 orders to MAX 9s.

So, what's the difference between MAX 8 and MAX 9?

This discussion from Motley Fool - Feb 2018 really focuses on the business aspects - the bigger ones are selling better:

The 737 MAX 7 attracted little interest from airlines, as its relatively small size means unit costs are higher. Boeing eventually changed the MAX 7's specifications to add 12 more seats, while increasing its commonalities with the 737 MAX 8 to reduce development costs.
Demand for the 737 MAX 9 was a little better, but still underwhelming. Boeing doesn't provide an official breakdown of its 737 MAX orders by variant, but one third-party analysis pegged the number of MAX 9 orders at approximately 410 as of a year ago. For comparison, Airbus currently has 1,920 orders for its competing (but somewhat larger) A321neo.
Stuck in the middle
At last year's Paris Air Show, Boeing launched the 737 MAX 10, a model that can fit 12 more seats than the MAX 9. The MAX 10 has roughly the same capacity as Airbus' A321neo, and will likely have similar unit costs.
Not surprisingly, airlines and aircraft leasing companies responded much more positively to the 737 MAX 10 than to the MAX 9. Boeing garnered 361 orders and commitments for the 737 MAX 10 in the span of a week during the air show.

Boeing has specs for all four varieties here. 

But we're still early on here.  We don't know for certain whether the crash in Addis Ababa was due to the same reason as the earlier crash in Indonesia.

From The Points Guy on a post today about flying on a 737Max :

"These two incidents have many passengers and crew asking whether the 737 MAX is safe to fly. A Miami-based flight attendant who wished to remain anonymous told TPG that she “no longer feels safe on the 737 MAX” and that she no longer “trusts” the aircraft. The Chinese and Indonesian governments have ordered their airlines to ground 737 MAXs, and Ethiopian Airlines, Royal Air Maroc and Cayman Airways have also suspended 737 MAX operations.
It’s important to note that the 737 MAX represents a small subset of the overall 737 family. Since the first Boeing 737 was delivered to Lufthansa in 1967, Boeing has delivered more than 10,000 737 aircraft and has approximately 5,000 more orders on the books. Of these, only 350 (or 3.5% of all deliveries) are of the 737 MAX variant. Still, if you’re trying to avoid traveling on a 737 MAX until an investigation into the Ethiopian crash is complete, here’s how you can identify on which 737 variant you’re flying."

Image from The Points Guy

 You should go to the site because he has lots of pictures, but two key things you can see on the Max planes are:

1. The engine casing is visibly serrated
2. The wing tips split (though Alaska Airlines shows 737-800s and 900s with split wing tips too.)

He also shows how to figure out what kind of plane you'll fly on when you're booking a flight.  

Here's a bit more from The Points Guy post about the 737 Max planes, that gets into why some suspect - from the fact that both the Indonesia and Ethiopia flights crashed right after take-off - this is related to the 737 MAX:  

While we don’t yet know the cause of the Ethiopian crash, and the Lion Air one is still being investigated as well, there’s an important distinction from a safety perspective. Only the MAX models have the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), software that automatically pitches down the nose of the plane to prevent a stall, which likely played a part in the Lion Air accident. [emphasis added]

Again, from today's Gizmodo article:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not ordered anyone to stop using the Boeing 737 Max-8, but customers are understandably concerned. Some people are even taking to social media to tell Southwest and American that they’ll be cancelling their flights because they want to avoid that particular aircraft.

From what I can tell Southwest and American are the two airlines that are currently flying the 737-MAX-8.

But if all the MAX models use MCAS software, it would seem (but then nothing is what it seems) that it wouldn't matter if it was a 737 MAX -8, -9, of -10.

Note:  This is not an area I know much about.  I'm relying on what others have written, so look at this as notes to use as a starting point.  Verify anything that is important.  

 

Reading Press Releases Between The Lines - Anchorage Airport

Here's a press release I got by email from the Anchorage Airport today.  My comments are below.

Cargo Ranking: Up one spot to #5 in the world, remains #2 in the US
(ANCHORAGE, AK) — Airport Council International (ACI) released its Annual World Airport Traffic Report yesterday with 2017 numbers. Last year, more than 2.7 million tonnes of cargo transited through the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.
Airport Manager, Jim Szczesniak said, “The airport remains a substantial part of the world air cargo system, that’s good for Anchorage and good for the State. We continue to promote our strategic location, and the synergies that Anchorage can provide in air cargo transfer, e-commerce distribution centers, major and minor aircraft maintenance and repair, and aircraft parts warehousing. This all translates to good paying jobs for Alaskans.”
Anchorage Airport is located on transpolar flight routes between Asia, North America and Latin America.
Total cargo volumes handled by airports experienced a record increase of 7.7 percent from the previous year.
Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport is less than 9.5 hours from 90 percent of the industrialized world and serves more than 5 million passengers annually. The airport accounts for 1 in 10 jobs in Anchorage, accounting for more than 15,000 jobs in Anchorage and a $1 billion in earnings.
The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities oversees 239 airports, 10 ferries serving 35 communities, more than 5,600 miles of highway and 731 public facilities throughout the state of Alaska. The mission of the department is to “Keep Alaska Moving through service and infrastructure.” [emphasis added.]

Let's look at the wording.

We are told in the headline and first paragraph that ANC went up one spot in the world rankings in 2017 and that we increased by more than 2.7 million tonnes of cargo.  

The every next paragraph begins by mentioning Airport Manager Jim Szczesniak.  I would suggest that the placing of his name like that would imply that he should take credit for this increase.  But I'd note that Szczesniak's appointment as the Anchorage Airport manager came in January 2018.  So he had nothing to do with the 2017 increase.  It might have been nice to give former airport manager John Parrott credit.  But then Parrott was asked to leave by the governor last October for undisclosed reasons.

But I'd also note things that the article doesn't mention:

If you click on it you'll be able to read it better.  Or go to the original here.

The press release tells us that world-wide air cargo increased by 7.7%.  It doesn't tell us (but the chart does)  that Anchorage increased only by 6.7%. In fact, of the top 10 airports internationally, Anchorage's increase was the 7th highest, or fourth from the bottom.  Of course, to be fair, the less you have to start in actual quantity, the easier it is to get a higher percentage increase.  But then again airports #1 (Hong Kong) and #3 (Shanghai) increased by 9.4% and 11.2% respectively.

The Airports Council International's press release, on which the Anchorage Airport press release is based, also tells us that the biggest growth in passengers and cargo comes from Asia.  So, in some ways Anchorage's growth is due to our lucky global location equidistant between Asia, Europe, and Eastern US.  (The press release doesn't mention Europe, but does mention Latin America which didn't used to be in the airport's publicity.)

International passenger service via Anchorage is way down (since 1990) due to planes that fly longer distances and passengers who want to get wherever they are going faster. (It was great for Anchorage residents who could fly directly to Europe and Asia.)  But freight fleets would rather carry more paying cargo weight than fuel weight, so a stop in Anchorage lets them carry more cargo and less fuel and then pick up more fuel in Anchorage. And credit must be given to the airport for being ready to take on more traffic.

I understand that the purpose of the press release is to make their organization look as good as possible.  But it's also the role of journalists to point out what they don't say.  On that count, I'd like to also note how the press release talks about all the jobs the airport provides.  It doesn't talk about all the noise Anchorage residents had to endure this summer and the even more noise they will have to endure next summer.  It also doesn't talk about all the pollution that is added to Anchorage's air and water.  (I found lots of interesting information and you can easily find studies that downplay the amount of air pollution  But check the dates of the studies.  And who did them.)

Sublimation

From the US Geological Survey:

"Sublimation is the conversion between the solid and the gaseous phases of matter, with no intermediate liquid stage. . . 

Sublimation occurs more readily when certain weather conditions are present, such as low relative humidity and dry winds. Sublimation also occurs more at higher altitudes, where the air pressure is less than at lower altitudes. Energy, such as strong sunlight, is also needed. If I was to pick one place on Earth where sublimation happens a lot, I might choose the south face of Mt. Everest. Low temperatures, strong winds, intense sunlight, very low air pressure—just the recipe for sublimation to occur."

Since we got back to Anchorage March 1, we've had low temperatures, not much higher than 25˚F (-4˚C) during the day and sometimes down to -2˚F (-19˚C) at night.  Wind.  and lots of intense sunlight.  Wikipedia says that average air pressure at sea level is 1013.25 mbar.  The National Weather Service charts for the several days in Anchorage show air pressure gradually rising from a low 998.2 on the 15th up to 1014.9 early this morning (3/17/17) and dropping this evening down to 1008.4. So I'm guessing we have a lot of relatively low air pressure for the last two weeks as well.

Again from the USGS:

"In summary, energy is needed for the sublimation of ice to vapor to occur, and most of the energy is needed in the vaporization phase. A cubic centimeter (1 gram) of water in ice form requires 80 calories to melt, 100 calories to rise to boiling point, and another 540 calories to vaporize, a total of 720 calories. Sublimation requires the same energy input, but bypasses the liquid phase."

Here's what that snow berm looked like a week ago, after the snow plows went through.

It's hard not to see everything as a metaphor these days.  Sublimation might well describe what would happen to many US government science programs - like those agencies that provided the weather data in this post and the definition of sublimation - if Trump's budget were to pass.  Many of the programs would pass from a solid to a gas, skipping the liquid stage.  And the top picture of the ragged wall of snow might serve as a good metaphor for what many agencies would look like.

Plane Spotting - Why They're Rumbling Over Anchorage This Week

China Air

If you drive out to the very end of Northern Lights Blvd and then past Point Woronzof, you'll see guys standing by their cars with telephoto lenses taking pictures of planes at the Anchorage airport.







But this last week I've been able to do that from my back yard deck.  Instead of flying off over Cook Inlet, planes are flying over the Anchorage bowl.  LOUDLY!  And with the great weather we've been having, I've been spending a lot of time on the deck, which has become our de facto dining room and my office.

UPS

They rumble over sometimes minutes apart, sometimes more.  It's pretty loud.

Polar

So I called the airport to see what's up.


I talked to John Stocker who told me that there is construction work on the north-south runway - things that have to be done every year and in the summer - like painting markings.  The noise will continue until June 25, except for Sundays.

I asked what happens during the night (since the noise stops during that time.)  Work on the runway is from 7:30am until 7:30 pm.

Korean Air

Mr. Stocker said the project was well publicized.  That may be, but I missed their publicity.  I did try the airport website before calling, but my search didn't yield any answers.  They may be there, but even looking at a section called 'noise abasement'  I couldn't find anything specific about this week, just long term planning reports. I even looked at the pdf on construction projects which doesn't seem to include this.  Each project talks about benefits, but they don't talk about negative impacts like noise.  It's hard to even figure out that the north-south runway is involved.

In any case, until June 25 - another week - we have a steady flow of jets flying over the bowl.  

Airshows And The Cost Of Military Fuel

We came out after dinner to see a plane skywriting above us.  Eventually it spelled out:

That's how I learned that this weekend, the Thunderbirds and other groups will perform at JBER. (Does anyone else think of someone picking their nose when people say Jayber, the newish acronym for Joint Bases Elmendorf and Richardson?) 

Skywriting is a very cool way to advertise an Air Show and the person we were with had never seen skywriting before.  He was duly impressed. 


I've been to an Air Show at Elmendorf.  It's impressive and loud.  I think just having planes swoop down on villages - without bombs - is terrifying enough. 

I also couldn't help but wonder about all the fuel used in an airshow.  If (data from the US Air Force Thunderbirds fact sheet)
a)  the 800 gallons an hour figure for F16s (see below) is our rough guide, and
b)  the Thunderbirds have an hour and 15 minute show (both air and ground) and
c)  there are four planes per show (see photos of the Thunderbirds in a show here)
then let's conservatively estimate that between the four planes, flying an average of 15 minutes each per show (to make the calculations very easy) for a total of a combined one hour of flying or 800 gallons. 

That would mean, just that part of the Air Show, if jet fuel is $3.84/gallon  (a big if) it would cost $2400.  After working this, I found some other sites asking similar questions.

Wiki-answers explains it all and concludes,

"Some sources claim 1 hr for F-16 is $4000"

Someone answering that question at Yahoo - Ask, who claims his father is an aerospace engineer, says $20,000 to $30,000 an hour in fuel costs to fly an F16.

The Thunderbirds fact sheet says they perform 75 such shows a year.  At $4000 a show that would come to $300,000 a year.  A figure so tiny in the Air Force's overall budget as to be of no consequence at all.  Even at $20,000 per hour, it would be $1.5 million.  Still a  tiny fraction of the overall budget.  Of course, this doesn't count practices and flying from show to show or any other costs besides fuel.  And how many 'tiny' $1million programs are there hidden in the budget that are not necessary, like this one? 


As you can see, figuring out how much fuel an F16 uses isn't easy.  There is a nice simple article at New Launches, but I can't find any sources for their information.  My sense of this, after looking around the internet, is that there is no simple calculation.  It depends a lot on how the plane is being flown.  I would imagine that the type of flying at an air show would consume more fuel than a steady flight at high altitude.  Here's a post at a forum at Defense Talk which tries to calculate fuel use.  I can't figure it out, and apparently the poster isn't sure either.

But for my purposes, it doesn't have to be exact.  I'm just trying to get a ballpark figure.   New Launches says an F16 uses 800 gallons an hour and also puts that into some context about how much petroleum the US Department of Defense uses altogether.

3) In 2006 Air Force consumed around 2.6 billion gallons of jet-fuel which is the same amount of fuel U.S. airplanes consumed during WWII (between December 1941 and August 1945). The mighty B52 bomber (pictured above) consumes 3300 gallons per hour, the F16 Falcon burns 800 gallons per hour and the KC-135 Statotanker an aerial refueling tanker aircraft consumes 2650 gallons per hour.
2) The Department of Defense is the single largest consumer of petroleum in the U.S and the US military is the biggest purchaser of oil in the world. In 2006 the US Military consumed 117 million barrels or 320,000 barrels per day.

I wonder how this affects the price of gas around the world? 

This Armed Forces Journal article supports the basic premise that the jet aircraft fuel is a major cost - in dollars, logistics, and casualties:

Aircraft, particularly jet aircraft, use a great deal of fuel. The Air Force is the largest consumer of fuel in the Defense Department. In 2006, the majority of DoD’s fuel use, about 58 percent, was jet fuel, dwarfing the next-largest category, marine diesel (13 percent). In 2008, fuel deliveries to Iraq and Afghanistan exceeded 90 million gallons per month — 20 percent of the DoD consumption. While the overall consumption of petroleum increased only slightly between 2004 and 2008, the dollar cost increased threefold. Because of the poor in-ground petroleum transport infrastructure, the heavy use of fuel in Iraq and especially in Afghanistan can be directly tied to casualties incurred by ground operations required to get the fuel to U.S. bases. Overall, roughly half of the total tonnage hauled overland is fuel.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the tie between fuel demand and casualties is significant and quantifiable. With fuel and water being the majority of the tonnage hauled, the Army has developed a model from historical casualty data. In Afghanistan, one U.S. soldier or contract civilian is killed or wounded for every 24 16-truck fuel convoys. In Iraq, that number was one per 38.5 convoys. During fiscal 2007, there were 38 casualties incurred moving 897 “average” fuel convoys in Afghanistan. The Army data do not include casualties among allied forces or the Marine Corps. The Marines track their data differently, but the Corps’ Expeditionary Energy Strategy does highlight the issue: “During a three-month period early in 2010, six Marines were wounded hauling fuel and water to bases in Afghanistan during just 299 convoys. That is one Marine wounded for every 50 convoys.”

The o-ax alternative

The direct link between fuel and casualties is not news. However, the impact of high fighter fuel consumption remains poorly understood and rarely discussed. If there were no alternative to the current tactical air fleet, the discussion would be moot. But for the kind of irregular warfare challenges faced in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere), there is a viable alternative: a turboprop-powered light attack aircraft. The proposed aircraft is not notional — modern light attack aircraft are flown by a number of air forces worldwide. Air Combat Command has a designation for its proposed light attack aircraft: the OA-X. Among its other capabilities, the fuel consumption of the OA-X will be a fraction of the consumption of fast jets. [This is just an excerpt, click here for the full article.]

Gives us something to add into the equation when we discuss US oil consumption and climate change.  

By the time we biked home, the letters in the sky were starting to disappear.

Summer (?) in Anchorage - Lots of Airport Runs

Technically, it's summer.  But except for the sun and relative warmth of half of April, it's been more like the summers of the late 70s and early 80s.  Cool, clouds, rain.  But it is summer - because summer is when you drop off and pick up friends at the airport a lot. 





Tuesday night I had two trips.  Here I am waiting at Arrivals while J goes inside to find our friends.

And still there waiting. . .








We got them home and then I went out again to drop another friend at the airport.





By now - on the way home again - it's almost 11pm, but it's summer and still light, even though it's been cloudy and raining all day.  Turning left at Lake Otis and Tudor.  Despite the strip malls and signage, I can still see the Chugach and all is well.