Whitewater kayaker turned pilot: Peter Heller
This writer prefers rugged terrain over runways
By that time, Heller was already well known in the outdoors world as a whitewater and expedition kayaker and extreme surfer. With that kind of a background, simply learning to fly wasn’t for him; he wanted to learn to fly bush planes into backcountry strips—and that’s what he did in 20 days and 40 hours of private instruction in Montana.
“I write about what I’m excited about at the time, so when I learned to fly, I wrote The Dog Stars,” he said. However, after he had his certificate he believed there was still a lot of growing to do. “I had to learn to really pay attention, do some rigorous flight planning. As a kayaker, you’re making fast decisions, and taking stuff as it comes. Flying isn’t really like that.”
Heller owns a 1956 Cessna 182, called The Beast, which is hangared at the Erie, Colorado, airport. “Pilots are such a league of honorary gentlemen and—women,” he said. “There’s a true sense of community. You can land in the middle of nowhere and someone throws you the keys to the courtesy car and tells you just to fill it up when you’re done with it, if you can, no questions asked.”
After The Dog Stars, Heller turned writing novels into a full-time job. He’s since published three more. His passion for flying is undiminished, even though “I haven’t been flying that much in the past couple of years. I’m really still a low-time pilot.” But that’s going to change. He’ll put some big tires on The Beast and is planning a big, weeks-long flying trip to Alaska with his erstwhile instructor, renowned mountain pilot Dave Hoerner. “We’re going to fly and land in far-flung places and all kinds of terrain. There’ll be some fishing. A real adventure.”
Heller is thinking about upgrading to a Van’s RV–7. He loves that it offers so much visibility and especially how one can do barrel rolls in it. “But I don’t think I can sell The Beast. It’s the plane that inspired The Dog Stars. And it’s such a pretty plane.”
Heller’s fourth novel is The Guide and is to be released in August.
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