AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015 - 116

P&E

NEVER AGAIN

A real eye-opener
Fright in the Idaho backcountry
B Y K U R T B EC K E R

116 | AOPA PILOT May 2015

no value if you have an emergency. I always use the full length of
every runway, except at the 6,000-foot-plus asphalt airports where
you can reach pattern altitude by midfield.
It had been so peaceful and quiet that I decided not to break
radio silence. We had not seen or heard any other airplanes the
entire trip, so I assumed there was no traffic around that lazy
Sunday morning. I had heard nothing on the radio while warming up the airplane. That was mistake number one.
I looked both ways before preparing to pull onto the runway.
I was thinking more about a stray deer or an elk than anything
else, and my runway scan was more out of habit. I looked right,
saw nothing; looked left, saw nothing; and then applied power to
roll out onto the airstrip to start back-taxiing. That was mistake
number two.
As we started rolling forward, I instinctively looked right one
last time. In the rare event an airplane was coming in to land unannounced, that would be the only direction from which it would
approach.

JAMES CAREY

IT WAS A beautiful Indian-summer October in Idaho. Daytime temperatures
were reaching the upper 60s, and lows
were still above freezing. A friend and
I decided to take one last flight into
the backcountry to go camping in my
Cessna 170B.
We had made two similar trips during the summer and had camped at
different airstrips each time. This time,
we chose an infrequently used strip
closer to home. The big game season
was not yet open, so we had the airstrip
and the proximal area to ourselves.
I always keep a .22-caliber rifle in
the airplane as a survival weapon and a
"grouse getter," and although I toted it
along, we saw no grouse (the season was
open for grouse and you can use "any
weapon" in Idaho to harvest them). I
think all the blue grouse were still up
high enjoying the nice weather, too. So
we ended up not making any artificial
noises the entire trip. Even the wind was
dead calm as the high pressure held true.
No airplanes flew overhead; we heard no
airplane noises in the distance. We both remarked how our voices
were the only unnatural sounds we heard the entire weekend.
Sunday morning dawned calm and clear, and we leisurely
packed up the airplane and got ready to go. No need to preheat or
wait for the frost to melt off the wings-that would come later if
I took a trip to go big game hunting. I would carry the wing and
engine covers and a preheater then. You have to be prepared for
snow during most autumns in Idaho.
Starting the engine was the first indication that we were still
connected to civilization. I let the airplane warm up and then
cycled the prop and checked the mags and carb heat. We were
parked on grass, so I didn't need to do the runup while taxiing.
It was finally time to take off and return to civilization. We had
parked about halfway down the airstrip next to some trees, and
with a slight downhill incline from left to right, I planned to taxi
to the end before starting the takeoff run. The airstrip is plenty
long for a midfield departure in my high-performance taildragger
with its 180-horsepower conversion, but runway behind you is of

AOPA Pilot Magazine - May 2015

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