Military clubs were the cheapest rental when I was a GI.

Great thread and very good responses. I wish this had been around when I got into it. For me it was club planes that allowed (most) of the places I took them and baby steps. I found the rating system in the Fly Idaho book helpful in doing comparison to similar strips. From there I expanded my experience envelope. All the while, as has been said here, practicing and becoming competent and precise in the airplane I was flying. Good luck and hope to see you out there sometime!

Like many have said already. Get comfortable flying Slow at different flap settings.

Fly slow, tight patterns at your airport. And find the shortest and narrowest runway you can fly your rental to and practice practice and practice!

Get comfortable flying Low and Slow. But always keeping an eye on an ELS!! You should be able to land about any small plane safely on a football size ELS.

And most importantly, try to find a flight instructor that has the same interests as your type of BC flying you want to do. Not the Airliner type flight instructor! (No offense to the Airline type FI's)

Have fun!

I was fortunate to have chosen an instructor who knew how to fly and not just teach. As a matter of fact, I was his first official student in some 16 years or so! What he taught me was how to fly the lower limits of the airplane (in several different makes/models). I'll never forget the feeling I had on final approach in his T210 as the airspeed and passing terrain below kept getting slower and slower as he skillfully controlled and maneuvered the airplane to a spot landing on a small strip. To this day, that is one of the things I value most about my training: know the lower limits of the airplane and how to operate safely within those limits.

When I was on my own I sometimes struggled with why I was out there practicing landings over and over again and I was starting to get sloppy. I decided to put together a systematic approach to landing to keep me on task. I still use this when I get rusty or when I'm learning a new airplane. It has help me tremendously:

1. Practice making a smooth landing...anywhere...every time. Once I'm consistently doing that, move on to #2.
2. Practice making a smooth landing, on "the spot"...every time. Once I can consistently do that...
3. Practice making a smooth landing, on the spot, every time, power off. And finally...
4. Practice making a smooth landing, on the spot, every time, power off, in any weather.

Please don't take this as official instruction but I believe learning how to control your airspeed and accuracy in the backcountry is definitely a big part of being successful.

Good luck and be safe,

CW

Some excellent responses for you. I just have a couple of things to add. If you plan on eventually flying off-airport you'll be flying a taildragger. Tell every instructor or other pilot you fly with in the meantime to bust your chops every time you land anything but perfectly straight. And be hard on yourself about this. Every sloppy landing you do now will make the transition to taildraggers that much harder.

As has already been stated fly everything with as much precision as possible. Always think like a sniper - aim small, miss small. The fun reward for achieving precision is freaking out ATC when you are unfortunate enough to be landing at a controlled airport and they tell you to turn off at such and such an intersection. They are so used to dealing with pilots that are lucky to even be able to land somewhere on the runway that they'll panic when you fly to within a couple hundred feet of the turnoff before touching down, and make it!

And, if I recall correctly, your somewhere around a 150 hour pilot, heading for the infamous 250 hours where it will dawn on you (like it did most of the rest of us) that you are actually becoming a confident aviator. Unfortunately at this point you don't yet even know what you don't know. Be extra vigilant about becoming overconfident.

Have fun and fly safe!

thanks for the info. the missus says that she rides in the right seat to serve as the safety officer (and official photographer) to ensure that I don't do anything dumb. she busts my balls whenever the landing is not smooth, not on centerline or I float it too much. watching, judging!

learned from day one to land on centerline, because at the little airport (A09) where I learned there isn't much room on either side of centerline.

Put the center line between your legs like those C-130 pilots have too. My wife liked PA-22 over Champ for the same reason.

the missus laughed and said that most women probably don't dig the back seat either.

straddle the centerline...check.

"Consistency is the basis of excellence." Repetition of the basics is the goal. This is true of all psychomotor skills. But in backcountry flying consistent accuracy becomes a necessity particularly where the landing margins begin to be defined by aircraft performance. It takes a lot of flying in varied conditions to get good. Some of the flying can be drilled. Slow flight in ground effect is one example. Rolling the runway alternating main wheels in calm wind and later in cross winds is another.

There is something to learn from almost anyone who flies a tail dragger. So don't be shy. Most serious backcountry pilots love to discuss the art. You might even get a ride.

I saw a comment earlier about always landing "smoothly". I would say always land "firmly". When you land you want to stay there. The less speed the better as long as you are about to touch down. The best landing is a stall for three point and one point methods. All the energy to fly is gone. The transition from flight to roll out is not necessarily "smooth". Mike

I think one could print this thread and review it before every flight. Soooo much good information. I love this place

All of the above but add the videos posted in "Photos & Videos" "Instructional". Watch them over and over and have your instructor check them out if is not too familiar with off airport ops, some good material there.
Have fun and don't rush into it.

You can practice wind management techniques at any uncontrolled airport and energy management turns anywhere.

When you are the only one around, always fall off the target (runway) downwind so that base to final will be upwind at much slower ground speed. When you have control of your speed with elevator movement and glide angle with throttle movement, you can cheat on the crosswind by angling across the runway, both takeoff and landing.

It is very energy inefficient to give up every advantage of strong headwind or crosswind by adding airspeed. If we are willing to use the throttle dynamically, like any other flight control, we can handle gust spread and use a strong crosswind or headwind to manage ground speed. OODA power management is what makes slow flight safe and useful. However, rapid transitions are necessary in gusty situations.

A lot of backcountry or off airport work will require maneuvering flight to check things out and to manage crooked approach and departure paths. Flying low powered airplanes in the high mountains in summer is all maneuvering flight. The energy management, no load factor turn, is why crop dusters don't die in droves. It can be used by others to work and play more safely. The altitude maintaining level turn makes flying in instrument meteorological conditions much safer and doable. The altitude maintaining level, load factor, turn is the most dangerous technique in maneuvering flight, including takeoff and landing. There is no need to make an airplane shake just to turn with sufficient bank to miss something. It only happens with poor planning or lack of knowledge. We need to understand and believe that the thousand feet, or even fifty feet, below us is free gravity thrust energy. All we have to do is not pull back. It is much prettier, and more efficient, if we plan the turn and climb wings level first to have more free gravity thrust to apply in the banked part of the energy management turn. We just have to remember to release the back pressure in the bank part of the turn. And we have to believe that engine power, already all in when up high, is not the only energy we have to manage.

Right on Jim.

Mojave Flyer, if you haven't already seen this here is a great video that illustrates the "no load factor" that Jim is referring to, and using the rudder. Both of these are critical to burn into your brain for the type of flying we do.

I actually saw this video a week or so ago. He has a bunch of good videos that talk through energy management and various techniques. I have watched them over and over again. My puny Marine brain needs the repetition.

Jim,

This story is in "Contact Flying" I think, but I have to tell it. We had six Marines in our Army flight school class. They smoked like a train in the back of the bus going out to stagefields. We had an ex-Golden Knight named Holmberg, who had quit smoking and was an anti-smoking zealot. He unlatched the fire extinguisher and headed to the back yelling, "fire!" and let fly. We threw Holmberg off the bus to save his skin. He got a ride out with one of the instructors.

Jim

I think for me, "backcountry" flying is more about a mindset than anything. Thinking a bit outside of the box.

I remember during my first couple of solo flights in a TW I almost looped my 170. The tower had us landing with a bit of a crosswind, but in ground effect I got slammed by a 25kt gust that suddenly blew me across the rwy. A quick go-around saved my bacon (almost clipping the windsock.) Tower came on and said "I guess we outta switch up the runway." Was a nice memory.

When I later told the story to the guy who taught me TW, he chided me. Since the rwy was 5000', he was wondering why I didn't just land the second half of the strip (past the parallel rwy where the trees came in much much closer.) This side was always quieter and sheltered from the wind. I had been so ingrained in my method of aiming for the numbers and hitting the center-line that I didn't see the forest for the trees.

My local field is 6/24 and 15/33. We have a wide grass (field more than a strip) that I use parallel to 15/33. Most asphalt pilots have a cardinal mindset, meaning that if they are landing rwy 15 (even for the field,) than they HAVE to land 15 regardless of the wind. Often times when the wind is walking around at say 200, I just land across the field into the wind. The field is plenty wide enough and no biggie.

It seems like this "freedom" is a bit hard for some 90,80,70 pilots to wrap their head around. For me, the change started once I began thinking about these things and taking more control of how I wanted to fly the airplane rather than how I was "supposed" to fly the airplane. This was when I began to think in the "backcountry" mindset.

On paved runways, I pick an aim point that allows me to do a short field landing and get off at the exit I want. Sometimes that means the numbers, but often not.

Barnstormer wrote: If you plan on eventually flying off-airport you'll be flying a taildragger.

Now, now. There probably are a few people on here that would have an issue with this statement!

I thought of one thing I hadn't seen posted here that is worth mentioning I think. Make the effort to pay attention to the sounds and feel of the aircraft. As experience is gained, you should be able to feel what the airplane is doing, especially in the low speed regime. A lot of mountain flying entails maneuvering at slow speeds in close proximity of terrain and you should be able to do this comfortably without much more than the occasional glance inside the cockpit. Your eyes will be busy outside of the plane analyzing the landing surface, potential hazards, wind direction, hard to see dead trees (snags), etc. This type of fly by feel will eventually move over to other areas of flying like the landing and approach. As a new pilot, I looked a lot more at my airspeed indicator during an approach. Now, it's just the very occasional glance because I know the sounds and feel of my plane when I'm where I need to be. Remember, approach speed varies with weight, DA, etc. and the optimal speed may or may not fall in the POH's published range.

My only comment about the taildragger...if you can barely afford flying, and you want insurance, the taildragger is a major additional hit to the pocketbook. Alaska insurance is pretty stiff. Flying a tricycle gear aircraft that I have 800 hours in makes the insurance pretty affordable. It is less than half what friends with similar taildraggers and lots more time in those aircraft are generally paying. And yes...I go off airport. Seven off airport landings yesterday...

Tri-Pacer, and now PA22/20 because of so many conversions, is one of the best buys in aviation. Really good low priced mountain and off field airplane.