The Montana Sweep

Yesterday I got stuck with "The Montana Sweep." Now that I'm a manager I get to do all the flights the nobody else wants to do. The reason that no one wants to do the sweep is because you have to fly six legs many of which are only 15 minutes between block out and shut down. When the weather is bad (which it usually is this time of year) it gets to be quite busy. . . too busy. This time the weather was actually quite nice (except for the 100 Knot headwinds over the Bob (Bob Marshall Wilderness Area)) and I had a camera with me. I decided to take pictures of final approach at all the airports and some of the cool sights along the way.(just what a pilot should be doing at 500 feet and 140 MPH . . . no different than talking on your cell phone and driving I suppose). Here are some of the Pics.

Turning Final in Great Falls. This was one of the very rare instances in which the wind was actually less than 10 knots. I don't ever want to live in Great Falls.



Departing Glacier Park Intl' you can see Glacier National Park up the valley and Lake MacDonald if you look real close. Now that the company has a crew car and an apartment in Kalispell we plan to spend a lot of time up there this summer.



Final approach into Helena. Helena is a really cool little town, it's a mining town that grew up into the state capitol and it has lakes all over the place. I would like to live there but then I would have to spring for a boat.



Butte MT, I hate flying into this place when the weather is down or at night. There are mountains all over the place and an 8000 foot ridge 2 miles from the runway. Unfortunately, there's an awful lot of aluminum in that mountain actually Ameriflight lost an airplane going in there on the sweep!



On runway 30 in Bozeman, I just like the way this one looks. Bozeman is a really pretty place!



I took a little detour past the east slope of the Crazy Mountains, can't wait to do some hiking up there in a few months!



Finally back home in Billings, I enjoy the sweep when the weather is nice.