Midsummer Update - July 2026

A shorter midsummer update, as we have revamped the online booking portal a bit. You can now book scenics and the boat, and see the ADSB data from the planes and view the weather the way we see it. Oh, and we have a new Chief Captain.

Portal

The Sortie team has made a number of improvements to the booking portal. First, we will show you the planes currently in flight if you have ever wondered what PIA is up to at any given time. The current rev is mildly useful. We are looking forward to doubling down here with ETAs, trips, who’s flying, and where it is going. The planes always point north for some reason (Pedro is fixing that).

Water Taxi booking also moved online, so you can book passage on one of our scheduled trips anytime, day or night. We are working on better ways to show the schedule through the portal, which is next.

If you are looking to see the Penobscot Bay by air, you can now book your adventure completely online.

Weather

Weather has always been an interesting one. This morning on Matinicus Island, it is beautiful. If you looked out the window and PIA called to move your flight back because of weather, you’d think we are clowns. But as it turns out, they are socked in something awful on the mainland, the AWOS reporting a ceiling of 100ft. The weather app on your phone is built to tell you when it’s going to rain, not when we can fly airplanes.

Aviation weather is different than human weather, if that makes sense. Planes care about ceiling (how high the clouds are), visibility (how far can you see in miles), and winds. We operate under VFR rules, so about a 3,000-foot ceiling, 5 miles of visibility, and crosswinds less than 25 knts. We need to heed official sources, NOAA and the FAA’s AWOS network, not the Weather Channel. The weather reported on Sortie is pulled directly from these sources and is crawled at the appropriate intervals. You’ll notice we only show three days of weather, which is driven by the fact that anything further out is generally garbage.

We want you to see what we see and make better decisions. We tend to see lower demand for the service when the rain icon is on your weather app, when in reality the rain starts at 9pm, and it’s beautiful till then. The reverse is true: it’s sunny, but with wind gusting 30 due north, making landing at Vinalhaven impossible. As always, flying comes down to the pilot. Even if the conditions show green, the pilot makes the ultimate call. At least you’ll have more transparency in the process.

Chief Captain

Lastly, PIA has a Chief Pilot (Stan) and a Director of Operations (Steve) ensuring we are running safe and efficient airplane operations. In a sign of PIA’s commitment to becoming a boat operation as well, we have brought on George Tarkleson as our first Chief Captain. We get that “Chief Captain” might not be a thing in maritime tradition, but we like it as it adds a little airplane to it. George has been operating in the waters of the Penobscot Bay for the better part of two decades and will be rejoining the Robin R, a boat he originally built and operated as the water taxi to Matinicus Island. Literally the best person in the world for this position, so we were super excited when he agreed to take on the role.

George will not have an operational role. You won’t see him driving the boat, but he will be behind the scenes training captains and deckhands and ensuring the PIA team is properly caring for the Robin R. If you have questions on the boat, please call dispatch or shoot a note to boat@flypenobscot.com.

Onwards.

Sean