I had not yet met the guy face to face, just a few phone calls about a 12 volt DC super efficient fridge he indicated he needed for a cabin somewhere. Well, yesterday we talked again and he happened to mention that the cabin was “out of Challis”. Now that got my full attention, and I then shifted into my mode of “I’m flying into your place, whether you want me to or not”. I start off real easy, and just casually mention if I’m in the area on other business maybe I could stop by, free of charge of course, and check out the situation. That sounded like a good idea he said, so then I smoothly mentioned that, now that I think about it, I may be flying the area in question in a few days. This was the first mention of the airplane keep in mind.
He comes back with “well, my brother used to fly his Beech 18 out of there”! Now this was bad news of course, where would be the challenge flying into a strip a light twin uses? But then it got better, he said next, “of course that was a long time ago, and we changed things around, I don’t think an airplane could land there now”. Now he had me interested again, so I just had to close the deal by getting all technical on the solar end of things, ending up with just to be on the safe side before we order any equipment I better make an onsite inspection of the system. He readily agreed, this was yesterday.
Today at O dark Oclock I took off with full fuel and a full thermos of coffee (LOTS of landing sites up the Big Lost, so no worries about in flight sump draining) and made the 165 mile flight through very familiar country, and some of my favorite in Idaho. I got to buzz by a ranch I had been doing a crane job on earlier in the month, and then checked out some sites nearby I had eyeballed while on the crane. Getting to Challis, and a little ways past, I hung a left and started following a canyon that was climbing.
Just right for the S-7S, even down low, in a Beech 18?? “His brother had big balls,” I thought. Popping over a little summit at 7K+, I saw the ranch for the first time, backed up by some 10 K snow capped peaks, it looked something like a tourists idea of Idaho. The cabin is about at the 1:00 area.
A few passes over the area showed I had a few choices for the landing, and it was just odd ball enough to be fun but not too hairy, some good sized rocks but I could see and avoid them thanks to the short grass. I was very near the Frank Church border, and the closet neighbor was miles away, so super quiet once I shut down, no one was at the ranch until my customer arrived later in the day. After taking care of my official business I took off and kind of slid down the canyon back toward Challis, with the engine not much above a fast idle, still glass smooth cool AM air, nothing better.Landing at the Challis airport I bs’d a while with the good folks at Middle Fork Aviation, and then my customer drove up and we met for the first time. The first thing out of my mouth, before we talked solar gear, was, “tell me about your brother flying a Beech 18 up in there.” Turns out.... the brother was one of the most highly decorated (87 citations he said, that sounds like a lot) Vietnam Cobra gunship pilots to come out of the war, nuff said. My customer had flown in with him to the family ranch ONCE, that was enough he said. He then mentioned that his brother only had ONE LEG, it got shot off in the war. I didn’t ask if he had a prosthetic or not, either way it makes a damn good story! He had a special cargo door in the Beech for his ATV, which helped him get around on the ground. I then found out he got killed flying a frigging gyrocopter, go figure.
We then got down to business, having gotten more important things out of the way, and it turned out to be the perfect day, made a little money, and flew almost 5 hrs, getting home by lunch right before the thunderheads popped up. Pinch me, I must be dreaming.
