Backcountry Aviation Radio

Season 4 closes out with a returning guest...Brett Baker of Cleared to Adventure was one of the very first people on this show, back in episodes 4 and 5, and this time we caught up in person on a gravel bar in Alaska. We flew in on the HawkWagon, caught some glacier views along the way, and recorded with actual gunfire in the background from neighbors sighting in rifles nearby. Hard to imagine a better way to close out a season. Brett opens up about something a lot of his viewers have asked a...

Shane Madson runs Mad Custom Cubs out of Westlock, Alberta — and he builds airplanes the way he used to build Harleys, one weld and one custom touch at a time. Before he ever picked up an aircraft-grade torch, he spent years on Alberta drilling rigs and running gas plants, then became a motorcycle mechanic and competitive racer, before a chance conversation with a parts-shop regular convinced him airplanes were actually simpler than the choppers he was already building. We get into the story ...

Jeff Smith and Matt Axley join the show to talk about Fly Rocky Top — a brand-new backcountry airstrip network in East Tennessee, and the flagship project of the Recreational Aviation Foundation's "Expanding the Map" initiative, announced at Oshkosh this past July. The network runs on a basecamp-and-outpost model. Rockwood Municipal Airport is the basecamp: a 5,000-foot paved runway paired with a brand-new 2,400-foot turf strip called Smuggler's Landing, a name with more local history behind ...

Josh Richling has one of the best seats in competition STOL flying - he's the crew chief behind Steve Henry's Wild West Aircraft Highlander XL builds, the machine that's put up some of the shortest takeoff numbers in the sport. He's also the guy running Tundra Tailwheels day-to-day since Steve Henry took over the company from founder Jim Pekola in 2024, and on top of that, he freelances for FLYING Magazine covering the National STOL Series. So he builds the airplane, builds the gear, and writ...

Ray and Melisa Fowler run Adventure Flying LLC, a CubCrafters Certified Sales Center covering the mid-Atlantic — Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Both are Delta A320 Captains, and both carry warbird résumés that go well beyond the airline job: Melisa is type-rated in the DC-3, C-47, and B-17, with stick time in the back seat of a P-51. Ray is a retired Air National Guard Lieutenant Colonel, an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner, and Director of Flig...