The islands of Penobscot Bay; Vinalhaven, Northhaven, Matinicus (Google Map) and others are connected to the mainland in a number of ways. Ferries periodically visit them. Most residents have their own boats. And several times each day airplanes arrive and depart from the nearby Knox County Airport at Owl’s Head to bring people and material from the mainland to the islands and from the islands to the mainland.

Penobscot Island Air is owned by Kevin Waters, an extremely genial and agreeable man who clearly has a lot of affection for the people he serves on the islands. The islands have been served by air taxi for many years. The service went through a succession of local operators over the years. Waters says that some of the same people he deals with a regular basis today remember flying back and forth to the island, "In their mother's laps." Today, Waters and his pilots fly some of those same people and their own children back and forth to their summer homes or their permanent residences.

Peter Ralston, the Executive Vice President of the Island Institute says, “It is no exaggeration to say their air service is a literal lifeline to the islands. Lives have been saved and other lives have been maintained due to the efforts of these guys.”

Without some of the island people, there would be no Penobscot Island Air today. A couple years ago, the company that serviced the Knox County Airport and provided air service to the islands decided to get out of the air taxi business. Waters says they were more interested in pumping gas than flying airplanes back and forth to the islands. "For the spreadsheet guys, it's a different animal.” Kevin Waters was chief pilot for that company and he and several other pilots were subsequently out of a job. Facing the prospect of no air service to their islands, residents of Matinicus and Vinalhaven came to Kevin Waters within days of the annopuncement and asked him to consider opening his own air taxi company to fill the void left by the previous company.

It was a difficult decision for Waters, but the people of the islands were willing to put their money where their mouths were and came up with several thousand dollars to invest in the new company. Waters says he considered their offer and took it up with his wife, "The High Command." After considerable research and planning, Waters took his 401(k) money and his home equity and, "just decided to roll the dice and go with it." He recruited some of the other pilots newly unemployed from the previous operator, and some of those pilots are still with him today. Waters says to this day he doesn't know exactly who from the islands invested in the new company, but he is determined to repay the investment. "It wasn't a given. We had to prove ourselves," says Waters.

They’ve done that, according to Ralston. He says he’s been told by islanders “These guys are honorary islanders. That...,” he adds, “Does not come easily…Kevin Waters has a heart as big as Penobscot Bay.” Ralston extends his praise to the rest of the pilots. “It’s a real democracy over there.” He says this is more than a job for them.

Today Penobscot Island Air brings mail, five times a week to Matinicus, six times a week to Vinalhaven and Northhaven. "It's not unusual to have a couple thousand pounds of mail in the morning." says Waters. Penobscot Island Air also provides pro bono service, often in the case of medical emergencies, or for law enforcement officers. Waters says they do 120 medevac's a year, backing up Life Flight, and they frequently ferry state police and deputies to the offshore islands in emergency situations. Peter Ralston says the Air Service saves lives, “Everyone on the Islands knows that for a fact.”

Penobscot Island Air is currently flying four airplanes; three Cessna 206s and one Cessna 207 model. Those planes are essentially fulfilling the same role as pickup trucks, ferrying people and equipment back and forth over Penobscot Bay, arriving at their destination in minutes, rather than the hour and a half it might take in a boat or a ferry. The operation has to be flexible, and the pilots need to be able to think on their feet, according to Waters. With so many people relying on their service, they need to be able to adjust to contingencies that arise and plans that can change. “Sometimes what was scripted goes out the window.” A dispatcher in the central office, a one-room building on the edge of the ramp at the airport, coordinates the activities, and consults with the pilots in the air by radio when plans change. Waters describes his operation, “Basically we're an on-demand air taxi.”

Some people on the islands use Penobscot Island Air to get their groceries. They fax orders into the local Shaws supermarket and Shaws puts them up for them, "Then we get a call," says Waters. There's a refrigerator and freezer in the hangar and when the plane is ready to go to one of the islands served, they’ll ring up the person who needs groceries on the phone and be met by them on the island.

Flying for Penobscot Island Air isn't exactly the glamour job of aviation. It’s not the most lucrative either, but it comes with it’s own rewards. Waters’ pilots have the same sort of independent attitude as the residents of the Penobscot Islands. He describes it as a, "Can-do -- that's not a big deal kind of attitude." Some of his pilots are working at their first commercial aviation job. Others have been making the trip back and forth to the island for many years. Waters says it's a good place for a novice commercial pilot because the older guys will often take someone new under their wing. "A lot of guys tend to have a bush pilot type attitude... This is kind of back-to-basics, stick-and-rudder flying."

Some of the strips on the islands are just grass roads cut into the trees, or spaces mowed into fields. Waters describes the strip on Swans Island as "a dirt road through a gravel pit."

On a beautiful fall day we accompanied one of Waters pilot's, Rod Barrows, on a flight to nearby Criehaven, a tiny island just outside Matinicus Island sometimes called Ragged Island. Barrows is right out of central casting for a bush pilot, with his thick beard, blue eyes, and quick wit. Maybe that's why the other pilots were needling him by calling him "Hollywood." There's a lot of good-natured needling going on around Penobscot Island Air. With us, came two contractors who were renovating a house on Criehaven and have been for several months. They’ve been back and forth with Penobscot Island Air every day.

Barrows is a native Mainer whose dream of being a bush pilot took him to Alaska for six years. He returned two years ago to work for Waters and Penobscot Island Air. He says, in a lot of ways this kind of flying is very similar to Alaska Bush flying. He says the key difference is you know the clientele better, because it's often the same people over and over again.

Barrows and Waters both say in their job they deal with people from all over the economic scale. "Sometimes you're dealing with pretty high-end fellas," says Waters. They’ll come in and with their cell phones just going constantly, but when you get out over the water and closer to the islands you can, “Just sort of see them de-tune."

I watched Barrows prepare the plane for the load he was carrying. Three passenger seats were configured to allow for the cargo and the relative mass involved. Waters says, “Those seats are in and out of those airplanes a hundred times a day." They’re pretty easy to remove and install in just a few minutes depending on the load. Barrows says when Penobscot Island Air got the Cessna 207, he was quite pleased. It was the plane he was used to flying in Alaska. "I am essentially a glorified taxi driver."

Rod Barrows and I, and the two contractors climbed aboard the spacious Cessna 207, along with some tools and a pile of 10 foot planks, and my camera gear. As we taxied out to the runway, we saw blue and yellow Stearman biplane from the nearby Owl’s Head Transportation Museum flying over the airport. Barrows gunned the engine and our red and white airplane rose out over a gleaming Penobscot Bay. The air was reasonably smooth which was a good thing because I'm not exactly a comfortable flyer. Barrows seemed to be quite used to flying with people who are less than comfortable in a small plane, and my discomfort was the subject of some gentle ribbing. We leveled off at a few thousand feet over the water, and Barrows pointed out the islands that he flies over every day.

To say the view was magnificent would be an understatement. The air was smooth and the sky clear. That’s not always the case for the pilots, though, who fly year-round. Barrows said that the weather can change pretty quickly sometimes, especially in the winter, and they definitely keep an eye out. Barrows said generally the air over the Bay is smooth unless you have a brisk wind coming from the southeast, where the disruption caused by the wind from one island will set up some bumpy conditions in certain spots.

Ahead of us lay Matinicus, and beyond that our destination, Criehaven. From a distance in the air, Criehaven is a small dot on the ocean. There is a scattering of buildings, three summer houses that belong to members of one extended family, and some other small buildings and piers where fishermen live during the summer. The only full-time resident is a caretaker and his dog. The landing strip on Criehaven is essentially shortish-looking strip of grass with a wind sock at one end. The approach is right over the water, like Boston's Logan Airport. There's ocean and then there's landing strip. Unlike Logan the strip is pretty small. Rod Barrows flew over the strip to give us a good look at it before we landed. He says, "That's a habit I got into in Alaska, you never know what's going to be on the runway up there."

After making sure the runway was clear and checking the wind sock to see what the local conditions looked like, we circled around and made our approach. We dropped down on the end of the runway as soft as can be and taxied to the end of the field where we were met by the caretaker and his dog. Our contractor friends loaded their lumber and tools of the caretaker’s tractor and invited us over to take a look at the house they were working on. While walking over, Mike Jones, one of the contractors, told me "I couldn't do this job without the air service." He said if he and his crews had to go by boat every day there wouldn’t be enough hours to actually get anything done before they had to return in the evening.

Shortly it was time to leave. We couldn’t keep the airplane tied up all day, so we packed up the cameras, climbed back in the airplane, and started back for Knox County Airport. The return flight was just as smooth, and Owl’s Head and nearby Rockland were beautiful on a crisp afternoon.

If you’d like to go too, you can just call up Kevin. For a pretty modest amount of money you can hop on board one of the daily mail flights out to the islands, or one of the numerous other trips they take to do one errand or another for the people they serve.

For me, it was all a great adventure, but the pilots of Penobscot Island Air do it all day long when weather permits, and all year 'round, helping the island communities to stay healthy and connected to the rest of the world.

Click Here of a gallery of pictures from our flight

Links: Penobscot Island Air The Island Institute by Chad Gilley aroundmaine.com October 6, 2006