Aircraft for the mission: Earthy, crunchy adventure

The customer:
Nature-loving family

The mission:
Your family loves to be outside. Hiking, skiing, and camping are all activities that you love to do together. It’s you, your spouse, and one growing 16-year-old boy. Your job leaves you free on the weekends to explore the country’s thousands of backcountry strips, and you have been steadily increasing your proficiency over the years with smaller and more difficult paved runways. You need the range to go a few hundred miles, and ideally you will be able to carry most of the gear that your family usually totes around in the family Subaru.

As one of aviation’s fastest-growing pastimes, backcountry flying increases proficiency, opens a new world of adventure, and is also just plane fun. What’s the right airplane for this beginner with a small family?

The budget:
$100,000 financed

Email [email protected]

Three options:

Cessna 182

This is the most obvious option, and probably the safest. This pilot is adding risks onto his flying, so why pile on even more with a tailwheel? Keep it simple in the beginning and go for a flexible, all-around great choice for the backcountry or any other adventure. It will carry all the gear, is an easy transition, parts are plentiful, and if he and his family get tired of the backcountry they will still have a great airplane with which to do everything from weekend hamburger runs to cross-country trips. You’ll want to take off the wheelpants for backcountry flying.

Cessna 180

Yes, at first the 180 seems like only a tailwheel version of the 182, and we said he should stick to nosewheels. But there’s another important consideration—acceptance. The backcountry flying community is a tight group that, while welcoming, has strong opinions. A 182 is perfectly reasonable, practical even. Yet, showing up in a 180 increases the turf cred just a bit more. It signals a dedication to the backcountry. There is also the very real consideration that tailwheels tend to do better on rough strips, in part because of better propeller clearance.

PZL-104 Wilga 35A

The Wilga is a sleeper choice. It’s the ultimate backcountry machine, as Mike Patey showed the world with Draco. And the quirky looks keep the adventures fun and fresh. Although it’s difficult to find one for sale in the United States, if you’re willing to take a chance it’s not hard to find one from overseas that will be within the budget. The difficulty may be financing such a rare bird, however.

Aviation History

100 Years Ago
January 21, 1921

Flying boats
In Italy, Gianni Caproni designed and built the Caproni Ca.60 Transaero flying boat. It was massive—it had nine wings with 98-foot wingspans, eight engines that produced 400 horsepower each, and it was 30 feet high. It was designed to carry 100 passengers. It crashed in 1921 after attempting flight on Lake Maggiore, Italy. Flying boats—like flying cars—have been a dream for many designers. Howard Hughes designed and built the largest, the Spruce Goose, but it flew only one time. Some successful models include the Blohm & Voss BV 238, the Dornier Do X, Consolidated PBY Catalina, Boeing 314 Clipper, and the Bombardier CL-415. Flying boats today look like the Icon A5 and Progressive Aerodyne SeaRey.