Living the Legacy™

Don Sheldon, Lowell Thomas, Bob Reeve.

Sheldon Air Service is fortunate to be the embodiment of two generations of Alaskan aviation pioneers, Bob Reeve and Don Sheldon. But there is more to it than that.  Co-owner and Director of Operations David Lee purchased Talkeetna Air Taxi from Lowell Thomas Jr and operated it for years. His contribution to Alaska range bush flying and Denali glacier flying spans three decades.

Chief Pilot Jok Bondurant has also devoted his life to Alaska aviation, flying for Doug Geeting's Talkeetna based glacer flying service before becoming Chief Pilot for the Hudson Brothers, from whom Don Sheldon's daughter Holly and David Lee purchased the base of operations for what is now Sheldon Air Service in 2010.  Holly Sheldon began by serving as back-seat bombardier for dad Don when the only option to get supplies to a climb team was to air drop them with pinpoint accuracy.

Between the three of them they are the legacy future generations will talk about. They are doing now what Sheldon and Reeve and Lowell Thomas, Jr. and Doug Geeting and Kitty Banner and the Hudsons did before them, and it ain't as easy as they make it look.

Fixed base operations in Alaska are one of the most challenging ways to make a living imaginable and SAS has had its share of difficulties establishing itself as one of the most experienced glacier flight operations in the business.  Never mind the obvious risk.  The cost in human terms can be extreme just juggling the myriad requirements of a start-up against all odds. Takes tough, committed people to do it.

So why do they do it?

"I just want to spend my life flying the Alaska Range", David Lee said in an interview in the fall of 2010, "There is no better way to make a living." Holly Sheldon Lee put it a little more succinctly, "We're just living out the legacy up here.  This is the life we want."  And thus 'Living the Legacy™' — the Sheldon Air Service trademark, was born.

SAS does not aspire to be the biggest flight-seeing operation at Talkeetna, they merely want to be the best, flying the mountain climbers, the adventurers, the rugged individuals seeking to experience a part of the rich history of Denali mountaineering and aviation for themselves.

The legacy is tangible in the presence on N4023Z, the last airworthy PA-18 SuperCub operated by Don Sheldon, which is in the hangar where daily presentations of 'The Don Sheldon Story' enthrall those unfamiliar with the exploits of the revered glacier pilot.

Flightseeing customers in the office

More importantly, the legacy is embodied in the customers who charter Sheldon Air Service to provide mountaineering expedition support, supply remote camps and homesteads or simply take a breath-taking ride amid the splendor of the Alaskan range.

People from all walks of life, from around the world come to Talkeetna each flying season for the unique opportunity to touch history as well as experience the adventure of climbing North America's tallest peak.  You can see it in their faces, hear it in their voices, feel it in their handshake.  It's the particular 'Joie de vivre' attained when one challenges oneself to live life on ones own terms, to dare to trade a bit of risk for the satisfaction of adventure accomplished.

SAS is preserving a heritage of decades of skillful and daring mountain flying in the simple act of living the legacy handed down by those who came before. Keeping the spirit alive in any true sense means continuing to do what it took to create the legacy in the first place. History is not just a faded black and white photograph on the wall in the flight office, it is vibrant and alive in the passengers and crew of every Sheldon Air Service flight.

You don't have to be a daring mountain climber to utilize Sheldon Air Service — although if you are, SAS can back you up with whatever it takes — all you need is a taste for the authentic and a willingness to find the real.