Idaho mountains are flat out intimidating. I flew from Johnson Creek to McCall today for fuel and groceries. The valleys are deep and the ridges are steep. There are not many places to go if a problem develops. Still, it is exhilarating to fly here. The scale of the landscape is foreign to those who have not been here. The Super Cub is a speck of yellow in an ocean of rock and snow and forest. Yet, pilots fly out to a variety of forest service strips, private lodge strips and public back country airports with nary a thought to the very real danger of any sort of problem.
Tomorrow morning, I am scheduled to fly along with Tom, a Delta pilot,who wants to go to Mackey Bar for breakfast. In his Maule, he will be faster, but I need the benefit of Tom’s experience in the back country. I’ve unloaded much of the gear to make the Super Cub lighter so it will have the performance necessary. I want to explore some of these strips with the advice of those who have “been there, done that! There are a variety of back country runways with varying degrees of difficulty. As a newbie, I have a lot of respect for the required experience needed to make this safe. The Super Cub is unloaded to make it lighter so I’m confident that tomorrow”s flight will be fun and educational.
Ken Wittekiend is an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner, professional flight instructor, aircraft owner and founder of ProMark Aviation Services, a flight training company based in Burnet, Texas.
Ken is a commercial pilot with over 11,000 hours of experience in a wide variety of general aviation aircraft. He began flying in 1970 while attending the University of Texas at Austin.