Back in Time

Pilots are very fortunate people. The airplanes we fly not only take us to places most never get to see, but they can also take us back in time.

For those of you following my stories over the past two years, I have been trying to return to a time when my flying was much simpler than the complex, turbine, high-altitude stuff I had been doing. My recent fight experience has involved single-engine airplanes, mostly VFR. Toward that end, I bought a Cessna 180, which I placed on amphibious floats, and I have since been flying it to places I never could land when operating flight-level capable turbines.

One of the areas I planned to visit in my new simplified flying life was backcountry Idaho, where, 30 years ago, I had flown into quite a bit in a Cessna 185 I owned at the time. The question, of course, was, to where exactly should I go back? That is a more complicated question than you might think because three decades ago, I had no problem camping out in a tent, sleeping on the cold, hard ground, not showering for a week, and eating out of cans for days. But now, somewhat older (hopefully wiser), I look for accommodations with more civilized amenities and comforts.

As I was considering this problem and wondering if I wanted to camp out again at Johnson Creek (a well-known Idaho backcountry airport) as I did years ago, I got an email from Gil Collver, a friend, Turbo Commander, owner and avid Twin & Turbine reader, who said I really should fly into the Flying B Ranch (12ID). He told me his two sons, Chad and Kelly, and a group of grandkids would be staying there for a week in August, and we could join them as their guests. He added that the Flying B Ranch has a dedicated chef, horse wranglers, cabins with indoor plumbing, and electricity from a private hydroelectric plant to make the invitation more attractive. But, with no cell phone or internet service and no road access, everything has to be flown in. Now, that kind of
‘backcountry’ airport is precisely what I had in mind, but I couldn’t fully admit it. How could I turn the offer down?

After reading Gil’s email, I looked up 12ID and discovered the “Flying B” is about 50 NM east of McCall, Idaho, in the Frank Church wilderness. It has a 2,100-foot grass airstrip at an elevation of 3,647 feet, running alongside the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The place was settled in the late 1800s as a cattle ranch named after a locally famous Idaho backcountry pilot, A.A. Bennett, who bought it in 1946 to convert it from a cattle ranch to a fly-in guest ranch. After several ownership changes, a group of Idaho hunters and outdoorsmen acquired it and formed an association. In addition, the group owns the Root Ranch, also located in the Frank Church Wilderness, once owned by Hollywood actor Wallace Beery. Both are now operated for the members by Flying Resort Ranches (flyingresortranches.com) out of Salmon, Idaho.

So, I asked my son Kenneth, a former professional Beaver float plane pilot in Alaska, to join me, and we set the date. With an experienced backcountry pilot on board (my son) and me not wanting to look bad, I started to pay attention to the myriad details involved in this kind of flying in piston single-engine aircraft. After flying mostly turbines for the past 20 years, the details were fortunately still in my memory, but rather distantly so.

One of the most important details is the effect density altitude has on non-turbocharged airplanes. Density altitude is the pressure altitude corrected for temperature. The higher the temperature, the higher the density altitude, even though the pressure altitude remains the same. Density altitude is a critical factor when flying in and out of the high backcountry, so much so that many of the airstrips have signs that warn about high density altitude next to the departure end of the runway. It is so crucial that in non-turbocharged airplanes, arrival and departure times are usually planned for the cooler times of day.

For example, the temperature in that part of Idaho is usually in the 50s at night but then jumps to the high 90s during the latter part of the day. The density altitude at Flying B can be above 7,000 feet if taking off in the afternoon, making a high gross-weight takeoff on a short runway and a confined area just plain hazardous. A non-turbocharged piston engine loses about one inch of manifold pressure or about 3.1 % of the engine’s total horsepower per thousand feet of density altitude, which means that at a density altitude of, say, 10,000 feet, you have lost nearly a third of your engine’s total power from that available at sea level.

From a practical point of view, the Cessna 180K I am now flying, which has the 300-horsepower Air Plains Continental 550 modification, would only put out 69% of its rated maximum power (207 horsepower) in that circumstance. Takeoff distances and climb rates are proportionate to the power available, meaning that in the above situation, the runway requirement would increase by at least 30%. The climb rate would be down in the 400-500 fpm range, often insufficient to clear surrounding terrain in the backcountry, even in a modified aircraft like my 180K.

But it is not only the engine that suffers from high density altitude. The wing is less efficient at higher density altitudes than down low. The aircraft must move forward at a higher horizontal speed to lift the same load as at a lower altitude. The combination of lower power output and higher true airspeeds required for takeoff is hazardous, especially when taking off from an unimproved surface, which creates additional rolling drag. Similarly, on landing, the airplane’s ground speed will be much higher (even with the same IAS), requiring a much longer landing distance. Unfortunately, backcountry airports almost always have very short runways.

The solution to most of this (even if you prefer to avoid getting up early in the morning) is to plan your operations for the early hours of the day and keep the airplane’s total weight as low as possible. If, for example, we depart or arrive at Flying B at 0700 with only two on board and the tanks half full, with a temperature of 50 degrees, the density altitude would be only 3,998 feet, and the adverse effect on both landing and takeoff performance would be much less.

Another problem to consider when operating these single-engine piston airplanes vs. the turbines I had been flying is you only know what the aircraft can do if you try it out yourself. Even in older jets like the Lear 35, we had all kinds of paper charts to predict the airplane’s exact performance at any given altitude and temperature. Newer jets have it done by the FMS in the center console. In single-engine pistons, the original Pilots Operating Handbook has some charts, but most of those aircraft are now 50 years old and highly modified. Those old charts become obsolete with bigger engines, STOL packages, VG installations, and gross weight increases. The best way to prepare for this challenge is to take off from a long paved sea-level runway while restricting power output to no more than 65%. You will soon become a real believer in the hazards of density altitude.

The other thing that is different in backcountry flying from operating turbines is there is no such thing as a stabilized approach. In a jet, if you don’t have the airplane configured for landing, with the runway straight ahead at about a 3 to 3.5-degree glide slope when you are at the final approach fix, the correct thing to do is go around. In backcountry flying, the runways are typically at the bottom of a steep serpentine canyon, with ridges at 7,000 – 9,000 feet MSL, next to a river at 2,000 – 3,000 feet. And although the landing area is usually visible while on downwind at the ridge level, it is common to completely lose sight of it once on base and final. On base and final, the sightline can be blocked by terrain in the canyon you are weaving the airplane through while descending. When you finally come around the last bend in the river in a 30-degree bank and can see where you are about to land, it is 30 seconds ahead of you. At that point, you had better be ready with the gear down and all the flaps out and slowed down to the point the stall horn is starting to activate.

Once I re-familiarized myself with all this backcountry operational stuff (something I used to teach several decades ago), Kenneth and I set out for Flying B. We spent the night before in McCall (KMYL) to depart early in the morning and take advantage of the low temperature. We also ensured our fuel load was about half full to keep the weight and required speeds down.

Before taking off, we consulted with Tor Andersen, a McCall Air Kodiak charter pilot, about how to best land at 12ID. Tor advised that landing upstream and taking off downstream was the best way for terrain clearance reasons, assuming no significant wind. We found that most other pilots on the frequency also used the upstream and downstream terminology when reporting what they were doing. Rarely are runways numbered, the wind is usually calm, and the river and its direction are what you can actually see as you fly through the twisting canyon on approach.

The 30-minute trip from KMYL to 12ID required a climb to 9,500 feet to clear the terrain, and it was surprising how many aircraft were out in the area at that same time, all reporting their positions relative to the terrain on 122.9. We made a downwind entry to the pattern at 8,000 feet, just below the ridge line to our right, and could see the ranch buildings and green grass runway area nearly a mile below us on the left. We put out all the drag available, reduced power to idle, and turned base, dropping into the canyon with a 30-degree pitch-down attitude and completely lost sight of the airport. At that steep pitch-down angle, we flew toward the opposite canyon wall before turning final at 5,000 feet, continuing around the canyon’s
corner until the runway was visible.

The touchdown zone when flying jets is usually about 1,000 feet from the approach end of the runway, heavily marked with black rubber from tire marks. The touchdown zone on backcountry runways is plain dirt or mud, all the grass having rubbed off by airplane touchdowns. The stall horn started beeping just as we crossed the river, and we touched down precisely in the touchdown zone, as evidenced by a cloud of dust. The runout was a bit bouncy, but the Aerocet amphib wheels handled it just fine. We parked the airplane in the middle of a short line of taildraggers with tundra tires, and shortly after that, the ranch’s beat-up old pickup arrived towing a squeaky passenger trailer. The ride back to the ranch took about 10 minutes and delivered us to a rather nice secluded cabin surrounded by free-roaming horses busily keeping the grass cut.

We spent the better part of the following week at the Flying B, with no phone service or internet. All we had to do was ride horses, fish, hike, and eat three well-prepared meals daily while sharing highly embellished and improbable flying stories with the other guests, most of whom were pilots. When the sun went down, we sipped wine on the cabin’s porch and, in otherwise total silence, listened to the crickets as they announced the end of the day.

It was like living in another time.