Skived off work yesterday and went flying. I decided to try out a strip I found on Google Earth. The airstrip is located on USFS land in the Umatilla National Forest. 45.040354,-119.569378. I contacted the District Ranger Brandon Houck and he said it was OK to use the strip but it is not maintained. RAF is working on a plan to do some maintenance.

The main runway is about 2300ft long at about 5000 MSL. It still has a little water on it as of 4/24/19 but should be dry in a week or two. I landed on the shorter runway 28 that has an uphill slope and better drainage. Runway 28 is pretty rough for 800X6's and has an uphill slope It would not be hard to get stuck without bigger tires so keep your speed up until you get to the runway intersection where it smooths out. I would not use this runway again without a good reason.

The main runway is relatively flat and smooth. 600X6's should be OK if rough field techniques are used. The approaches are clear from both directions. 16-34 has tires marking the ends but they could use a new coat of white paint. There is an ATV trail that crosses the runway but it doesn't cause a problem. There is a hole in runway 34 near the ATV trail crossing on the left edge.

There are reasonable camping areas near the the runway intersection. A wind sock pole is located at runway intersection but the sock is gone.

You can watch a YouTube video showing a low pass and landing that some fine person posted.

Fly safe. Marc

Thanks for the report TriPacerPilot. A 20 person fire crew lived in tents across the gravel road to the west of the airstrip in the 1970's. They flew them in and out of there in a DC3 to fires in US Forest Service region 6, Washington and Oregon.

I built the wind sock pole. It will fold down by pulling one bolt out of the base. The name of the flat is actually Big Rock Flat. It's nice to see the airstrip is still in good shape.

Nice to know some history. The pole is in good shape, just needs a new sock.
It's a beautiful area. Looking forward to going back with more time to explore.

Looks good, it pretty much on my route to HSF, maybe I will stop in this year.

Looks beautiful for sure. Are you sure its 04-34 though? Those numbers aren't making sense to me...

A1

Thanks for sanity checking, I don't know what I was thinking. I fixed the post and drawing. I used a program to measure the azimuth from the satellite image. Not sure if it's magnetic or true. I suspect it's true.

https://acscdg.com/

Marc

Here's a scan off the Umatilla NF visitor's map of the immediate area around the airstrip. Airstrip is just left of center. The azimuth ring around Madison Butte Lookout is true heading.

This is actually a Map made by one of the Umatilla NF engineers from the visitor's map base. The purple lines are Lat and Long on a 30 minute grid the same as a sectional chart. The horizontal line below the airstrip is 45 degrees north and the one west of Tupper spring is 119 degrees 30 minutes. The one minute tic lines are very faint.

On the Seattle sectional Tupper is labeled as "Camp".



Photo taken looking south from Tupper Butte. Big Rock Flat on the right side. The smoke is the Monument fire July 2007. Actually a nice underburn. The ponderosa pine liked it.

Thanks for the updated PIREP Marc.

We are indeed working with USFS to restore Big Rock Flat airfield. Ranger Houck has been very receptive to our proposals and we are currently working through the approvals process.

The airfield was constructed in the late 1940's as part of a massive effort to eradicate Spruce Budworms. Here is a photo of the airfield in 1950.



There were also several large storage tanks for DDT, which was hauled up to the airfield by tank trucks. Those were the days - no safety equipment at all!



It seems they operated all sorts of aircraft off the airfield - looks like good fun, eh?



We are unlikely to be able to complete the process to enable us to do any ground work this season. But, we hope to be ready to go about this time next year.

The airfield is useable for bush type aircraft. Personally, I'd say nothing less than 8.50x6 tires, but use your own judgement. Have fun!

Slight tangent, but the Budworm eradication efforts of the 1950's-1990's all over North America are an amazing piece of aviation history. If you like the idea of flying WWII round engine aircraft in a backcountry setting, look no further! While I haven't read much on the efforts in the PNW region, such as a at Big Rock Flat, the efforts in New Brunswick, Canada were astounding with airfields like Big Rock Flat supporting dozens upon dozens of Stearman flown by pilots from all over the US and Canada in a daily all out attack on the Budworm. All conducted NORDO and with a rather high success rate.

https://nbstearmans.com

Great to see efforts put into preserving one of the US strips from that era for future aeronautical use; certainly some grounds for preservation as a national historic site. Hope to visit some day in my Stearman!

Windknot54

Wow, more great history. Really looking forward to spending more time up there. Keep us up to date on your efforts. Look forward to helping out where I can.

Marc

Put me on your list when you get around to moving dirt. I’ve got a few tractors and implements and am not too far away.

Any progress on getting the Forest Service to allow restoration?

My apologies for not reporting back.

There was meeting at the Big Rock Flat airfield in early October between RAF and USFS representatives. The USFS attendees included the District Ranger, aviation manager, recreation manager, and archeological/cultural specialist for the Umatilla NF. We explained our desire to make the facility more accessible to the GA community by improving the landing surface and camping area. USFS was supportive of GA use of the airfield, but they outlined a number of regulatory constraints to undertaking physical improvements to the area.

The conclusions of the meeting were:

1) The public is welcome to use the airfield;

2) Physical improvements to the airfield cannot be approved at the moment; however, USFS will further investigate if future work may be possible; and

3) USFS and RAF will work together to try and identify possible additional landing sites in the Umatilla NF.

So, not an outstanding outcome, but at least we confirmed that continued use of the airfield is acceptable, and USFS agreed to continue discussions.

We also installed a new windsock.

Very good work! Thank you for the update!

I flew up to Big Rock Flat on Sunday 09 February. The surface was frozen, but quite wet and muddy underneath. The airfield is probably only suitable for bushwheels until it dries out in the Spring (or we have a good hard freeze). The wind sock hasn't blown away!

Thank you for the update. Looking forward to checking it out on 800's this spring.

I went into Big Rock Flat this weekend. Approached from the North and left to the South. I did a low flyover and saw what I thought was clumpgrass. The airstrip name does not lie. I've got 800's on the mains and a 700 nosewheel. I feel like I owe my landing gear an apology. Every fist sized rock anywhere near the surface got frost heaved this winter, and I think I hit them all. A bit like driving on railroad ties or riding a jackhammer. Big Rock Flat is a cool location, a relatively low risk destination, and in my backyard, but I don't think I'll be going back until it gets some love. It did get me thinking, can I license a roller as an ATV, and drive it offroad? Let me know when I can bring a tractor down and help out.

jcadwell wrote:I went into Big Rock Flat this weekend. Approached from the North and left to the South. I did a low flyover and saw what I thought was clumpgrass. The airstrip name does not lie. I've got 800's on the mains and a 700 nosewheel. I feel like I owe my landing gear an apology. Every fist sized rock anywhere near the surface got frost heaved this winter, and I think I hit them all. A bit like driving on railroad ties or riding a jackhammer. Big Rock Flat is a cool location, a relatively low risk destination, and in my backyard, but I don't think I'll be going back until it gets some love. It did get me thinking, can I license a roller as an ATV, and drive it offroad? Let me know when I can bring a tractor down and help out.

Back in the 1980s there was a cattle rancher with a cub that used this strip once in a while. He said the way he determined if it was smooth enough to land a cub was to drive down it in an open jeep with no seatbelt at 40 mph. If he didn't get thrown out it was smooth enough.

Thanks for posting the photos. They brought back some fond memories.

jcadwell wrote:I went into Big Rock Flat this weekend. Approached from the North and left to the South. I did a low flyover and saw what I thought was clumpgrass. The airstrip name does not lie. I've got 800's on the mains and a 700 nosewheel. I feel like I owe my landing gear an apology. Every fist sized rock anywhere near the surface got frost heaved this winter, and I think I hit them all. A bit like driving on railroad ties or riding a jackhammer. Big Rock Flat is a cool location, a relatively low risk destination, and in my backyard, but I don't think I'll be going back until it gets some love. It did get me thinking, can I license a roller as an ATV, and drive it offroad? Let me know when I can bring a tractor down and help out.

Thanks for the Pirep.

My landing gear still holds a grudge for when we went to Memaloose so I will pass on this one as well but it sure did look appealing, and as you say, close by.

Here's some area trivia. Some from memory, some from an old planning document for management of the the Heppner Ranger district.

About three miles north of the airstrip you find Parker's Mill and about three miles east southeast of the airstrip Morphine Spring. There was a wagon road known as the Wigwam Trail that went from Parker's Mill through Morphine spring to Canyon City. They hauled wool, gold, freight, passengers, and mail.

Morphine Springs was also a stop on the Heppner-Monument stage line. The stage line went out of business in the early 1900s.

There are several theories as to the origin of the name Morphine. One is that the operator of the stage stop was addicted to morphine. Another is that it was a pickup point for morphine being run to the gold mines in Canyon city where there was a large Chinese population.

There is a rumor that the station agent died at the station and that he buried a large sum of money somewhere nearby before he died.

Wool buyers used to set up headquarters at Morphine spring and sheep would be driven there from all over the surrounding area for shearing.

One time I was the initial attack fire boss on a lightning strike fire near Morphine Spring. The custom is to name the fire for a nearby geographical feature. So "Morphine Fire" it was. I had ordered a load of smoke jumpers and when they landed the first thing they told me is that they couldn't believe their luck when they were told they were going to the "Morphine Fire". They said it was the coolest name of any fire they had been on.