Headwork

My job was to come from behind the crowd, directly overhead, perpendicular to the field, and timed to the second. The fly-by is choreographed every year so photographers can capture the iconic scene of disciplined graduates, in disorderly celebration underneath a swarm of disclaimed hats, photo-bombed by the U.S. Air Force’s flagship formation.

One of the newly commissioned lieutenants that day was Patrick Williams. His father, Dick, watched from the stands and hugged his wife, Linda. It was a joyous scene for Patrick, an emotional one for Dick and Linda, but a stressful one for me. The graduation fly-by demands good headwork. Because of the run-in direction, it’s impossible to pick up the stadium until too close for any corrections. Misses by Thunderbird leads in the past are infamous. As we began our run-in west of the field over the Rocky Mountains, blind and out of radio contact, I uttered the universal pilot prayer, “Dear God, please don’t let me mess this up.”

This past summer, Dick, Patrick, and I discovered our shared connection to that moment when we met for the first time in the Idaho backcountry. Backcountry instructor Amy Hoover had invited us to join her for July Fourth weekend at the Flying B Ranch Landing Strip (12ID). Earlier this year Amy, Dick, I and a host of other pilots, representing associations and state agencies, had formed a coalition to improve safety and stewardship in backcountry flying. I’d spoken with Dick but never met him in person. He has flown the backcountry for decades in all kinds of airplanes and all seasons. He’s piloted for lodge owners, owned Part 135 operations, given seminars, written books, and offered instruction. I couldn’t wait to get some of his time, guiding me through this spectacular, demanding country. Patrick was in town on vacation from flying F–22s with the Hawaii Air National Guard. It didn’t take long for Patrick and me to get into the “do you know him, do you know her” associations. We swapped a few funny stories, a bit of Air Force gossip, and eventually made the graduation flyover connection. Now, here we were with his dad, each in our own Super Cub flying the Idaho backcountry. How marvelous, this small and intimate aviation community of ours.

Over the weekend, Patrick and I analyzed our enjoyment of backcountry flying in the context of our shared background flying fighter jets. We are both asked how we can enjoy flying a 150-horsepower Cub at 100 mph after flying beyond the speed of sound, with more than 50,000 pounds of thrust available at the snap of a wrist. At least part of the answer, we both believe, lay in the mental challenge. A modern fighter jet is not hard to take off, cruise, and land. The challenge comes in employing the airplane as a weapons system. Sure, you must harness stick-and-rudder skills and advanced air combat maneuvering, but those come early in the training syllabus for a reason. They are the easiest of the skills to master. Leading a mission, maximizing the airplane’s combat advantage, knowing when to engage, and having the discipline not to engage when conditions are disadvantageous takes headwork, judgment, and years of experience. Your stick-and-rudder skills are assumed. They operate in the subconscious as you dissect the air war developing and maneuver to engage with an advantage.

Backcountry flying shares the emphasis on headwork. Certainly, you must have strong stick-and-rudder skills: short and soft field operations; exact speed control; slow flight at high gross weight; high density altitude flying; coordinated turns. All of those basics are critical, compulsory in fact. Show up in the backcountry without them honed and you will very likely damage your airplane and hurt yourself. But the more demanding aspect of flying the backcountry is the head game. There is no supporting infrastructure, no ATIS, no wind sock, or sometimes dueling wind socks placed at each end of the airfield indicating opposite wind directions. Runways are short and rough and often offer no go-around option. Almost all patterns are nonstandard and very few finals can be flown on a standard 3-degree glideslope. Density altitude can become extreme. Winds change swiftly. Thermal turbulence can preclude precise aircraft control. Mountain drafts can exceed the capability of your airplane to climb or descend out of them. Pilots are tempted to follow others whose skill and aircraft capability exceed their own.

A pilot’s critical skill flying the backcountry—like flying a jet in aerial combat—is headwork. Good stick-and-rudder skills are compulsory, but all your best skills are of no value if you put yourself and your airplane in an unwinnable situation.

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