Inupiat entrepreneur wins seed money: An effort to encourage entrepreneurship on the North Slope by offering seed money to creative business ideas will award $25,000 to a business that specializes in apparel prints and Inupiaq arts and crafts. Jacquelyn Nayakik, owner of Manuluuraq Designs, pronounced ma-noo-loo-ruk in the Inupiaq language, will work to decrease prices on apparel printing to save North Slope residents money, according to a press release about The North Slope Marketplace. Nayakik said she hopes to add two employees as her business grows. The Marketplace is sponsored by Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaska Native corporation ranked as the state's wealthiest homegrown company. The award is the first of the year.
New affordable option for tracking Alaska flights: In a cheap step forward for real-time airplane tracking in Alaska, the Federal Aviation Administration has approved the DeLorme inReach Satellite Communicator for real-time flight tracking as part of the agency's "Enhanced Special Reporting Service" program. The inReach SE is a compact satellite communication device that will fit in a pocket and retails for less than $300. It is not a substitute for the 406 Mhz emergency locator beacon, still considered the gold standard for search and rescue, but does provide constant tracking of aircraft in flight which can prove vital in search operations should the plane go in the water or crash in some other way that renders the ELT inoperative. Will Johnson, a Fairbanks pilot who was forced to make a crash landing near McGrath late last summer after the engine on his Cessna 206 quit, used an inReach to text his wife back in Wasilla "ENGINE FAILURE. ALL OK." As she was checking to see where he'd gone down, Johnson called authorities to get directions to a landing zone where they could pick him up. The ELT in his plane never did go off. "Pilots and aircraft owners are encouraged to participate in this program while operating within the state of Alaska," James M. Miller, manager for Alaska Flight Services for the FAA, is quoted as saying in a DeLoreme press release. "Once an alert is generated, the position of the aircraft is transmitted to flight service either directly or through the International Emergency Response Coordination Center." DeLorme is promoting the inReach as much more than just a GPS tracker for airplanes, hikers and others. The inReach has a dedicated SOS alert button with which it is possible to send a 911 call, plus two-way text messaging capabilities both from the ground and in the air. The company says the two-way messaging capacity could prove a huge benefit to authorities in any age in which technologically wired Americans are increasingly calling for rescue whether their lives are in danger or not.