AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - November 2017 - 74

SCHMIDT AND AUEN met up

Frank Church River of
No Return Wilderness

"The surface is kind of rough,
so when we touch down, just hold the
stick all the way back, count to eight,
listen for the buzzer, and hope for
a good score."
-Steve Anderson, Aviat test pilot

74 | AOPA PILOT November 2017

with backcountry pilot Paul
Collins (wearing the white cap
below) who led the group
in his own Husky to airstrips
throughout the Frank Church
River of No Return Wilderness
area. A Husky (right) drops
in to Soldier Bar, one of the
more challenging airstrips
on the Middle Fork of the
Salmon River.

And even though he was traveling at a fraction of the jet's
speed, the nearness of the canyon walls made the Husky's airspeed of 100 miles an hour feel unusually fast.
"That's Soldier Bar ahead on the right," Aviat test pilot Steve
Anderson told him from the other seat of the tandem bushplane.
"There's only one way in and one way out. We'll land uphill and
take off downhill."
Schmidt scanned the rugged terrain but couldn't spot the runway. The only remotely suitable landing area was a scrub-covered
hillside with a short, curving, dusty goat trail on the east side.
There weren't any runway markers, or even a windsock.
"I don't see a runway," said Schmidt, 31, a U.S. Marine veteran
who served in Afghanistan. "I only see something that looks like
a cow path, or an ATV trail."
Schmidt, one of two winners of the Hidden Gem contest sponsored by Aviat Aircraft and AOPA, was collecting his prize-a
three-day journey through the magnificent Frank Church River
of No Return Wilderness area in a robust, 200-horsepower Husky
A-1C with an experienced backcountry pilot. (The other winner,
Jeff Auen, was about a half-mile behind him in another Husky.)
Anderson assured Schmidt that the 1,650-foot-long, 15-footwide gash below them was an actual landing strip, and that they
would soon be touching down there. But first they had to fly up the
canyon for one mile to find an area wide enough to turn around,
then slow the airplane, line up with the runway, and clear the cliff
at the approach end with as little margin as possible.
"The trick is touching down as close to the end of the runway
as you can, to avoid the bumps further down," said Anderson, 36,
a burly, sardonic test pilot who grew up and learned to fly in the
Mountain West. "The surface is kind of rough, so when we touch
down, just hold the stick all the way back, count to eight, listen
for the buzzer, and hope for a good score."
The landing went as planned, and the Huskys bounced and
rolled to a dusty stop. They had to add power to taxi uphill to the
far end of the strip.
Soldier Bar-named for 19-year-old U.S. Army Pvt. Harry
Eagan, who was killed there in a 1879 battle against the Shoshone
tribe-was the most challenging of the half-dozen airstrips the
contest winners visited during three days of backcountry flying.
And to Schmidt, it was the most memorable.
"I was looking right at it but couldn't believe it was an actual
runway," he said. "This trip has expanded my definition of the
word 'runway.'"

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - November 2017

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