Plenty.

In Alaska's remote vastness, small airplanes function like flying SUVs. They're needed for kids who travel to ballgames, for engineers who install sanitation systems and workers who maintain electrical generators.

And sometimes, small planes support the basics of life, like going to the dentist for a toothache.

With Alaska's expanse of land and with relatively few roads between villages, small planes play an essential role.

"You are dependent on that airplane for your most basic needs," Hallinan said.

Flying in Alaska, especially in the bush, can be tricky -- snow, wind, ice, sleet, mountains that make their own weather -- it's all there. Alaska pilots have a fatality rate four times higher than those in the Lower 48.

That fatality data, from the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, appears in the Nov. 3 newsletter of the Alaska Air Carriers Association.

The newsletter also has a list of the 10 most dangerous jobs in America for 2002 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor. Pilots and navigators were listed as No. 3, behind lumberjacks and fishermen.

"Those are not the numbers you find from the convention and visitors bureau, but they are very real," said Hallinan.

To reduce those numbers, Capstone was founded in the late 1990s when the aviation industry came to the FAA and said, "Let's get the problems addressed," Hallinan said.

What does Capstone mean to Alaska commerce?

"What it means is safe access," Hallinan said. "By moving deeper into an instrument environment, we're allowing aircraft to go when they need to go, rather than waiting for the weather to be clear."

Leonard Kirk, Capstone coordinator at the University of Alaska Anchorage, said the program has a direct impact on Alaska commerce.

"When we improve the efficiency, reliability and safety of aviation, it's a positive for everybody that uses aviation as part of their business," Kirk said.

Another function of Capstone is linking programs under a common umbrella for planning and coordination.

"We're largely a safety program," Hallinan said.

"What it does in a nutshell is seek near term safety increases from new and emerging technologies," he said. "There are a plethora of technologies out there being used."

One Capstone technology being used is called ADSB, or Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, a technology that transmits aircraft position and other data between aircraft and the ground.

"ADSB is more accurate than radar, is what we're finding," Hallinan said.

Currently there are about 200 airplanes in Bethel that have ADSB on board.

Phil Bray, director of operations for Era Aviation, said five Era aircraft out of Bethel are Capstone equipped.

"Our pilots have learned to like the program and rely upon it quite extensively," Bray said.

"It's a pictorial moving map of the terrain around them, and it provides information on the location of other aircraft participating in the program. You just know where everybody is. It's a quasi-radar -- it's like having an air traffic controller in your pocket."

Capstone is currently focused on two areas, the Yukon-Kuskokwin Delta and Southeast, which will start using ADSB in the spring of 2004. Capstone also installed 10 ground-weather systems in the Y-K Delta and brought airports up to IFR (instrument flight rules) standards.

How is Capstone doing so far?

A 2003 study by the Mitre Corporation, a government-funded research organization, showed a safety gain of about 25 percent, Hallinan said.

Phase I of Capstone is getting as many planes as possible in the Y-K Delta equipped with ADSB, Kirk said. Phase II involves expanding coverage and adding WAAS, or wide area augmentation system, to the ADSB. WAAS uses satellites and ground based receivers for precise navigation.

Kirk also said Capstone is improving safety.

"In phase I we know it's working and reducing the accident rate," Kirk said. "The equipped aircraft are having fewer accidents than the non-equipped aircraft."

And that's good news for the program.

"The FAA director wants to see the growth of Capstone," Kirk said.

With its challenging flying conditions on so many levels, Alaska serves as a good testing area for aviation technology.

"We're the first people to use it (ADSB) in air traffic control, end to end, for daily use in commercial airplanes," Hallinan said.

Kirk agreed.

"Everybody looks to Alaska as an ideal laboratory to test new and emerging technology," Kirk said. "If it will work in Alaska, it will work anywhere. As they're proven and hardened, they're being exported to other parts of the world to be used in other places."

In October the FAA's Alaska Region awarded Sensis Corporation a contract to produce 90 ADSBs for Capstone. In April of 2002 the FAA awarded a $4.9 million contract to support Capstone in Southeast Alaska.

Jerry Dennis is executive director of the Medallion Foundation, a non-profit organization that works on human factors to enhance air safety.

Dennis said Capstone is important all over Alaska.

"Once we get the entire infrastructure in place for the entire state, it will make flying much safer, because there will be more IFR (instrument flight rules) routings," Dennis said.

"It's the wave of the future, and Alaska is on the crest of that wave at this point in time."