Fascinating articles that give insight into the past and the future of aviation in Fairbanks. Back to the Guide.
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Fairbanks Aviation Insights
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There are many milestones in Fairbanks Aviation.
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The earliest people to live on the land now called Alaska arrived by foot on the Bering Land Bridge. Thousands of years later, a riverboat carried E.T. Barnette, the accidental founder of Fairbanks, up the Chena River.
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For pilots or passengers on chartered flights, the arch is a symbolic start to their journey into rural Alaska. Unlike with major air carriers, most of the flights that leave from this half of the airport are destined for small villages or wilderness areas with only a handful of people and a very specific purpose in mind.
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Early aviators in the Alaskan Territory frequently made do without prepared landing strips, putting their airplane down wherever air transportation was required.
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Each year, production teams visit this airport to shoot footage for movies set in the WWII era, and airplane enthusiasts from around the world scan the skies for a glimpse into the past.
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The aviation maintenance program is the oldest vocational program in the statewide university system, and is growing in leaps and bounds. Perhaps surprisingly, there is even greater demand for these services in the Interior and Arctic regions than near Anchorage or Juneau.
In rural Alaskan villages with no road access, nearly all goods must be transported by air. This includes fuel, which requires special aircraft equipped with aluminum tanks to handle 2,000−5,000 gallons of fuel and certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.