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 about: a DEXA scan earlier this year that came back with a biological age of 68, despite a background in competitive swimming and Ironman racing. That result changed things fast — no alcohol, no sugar, and 43 pounds down since. He puts it in pilot terms that stick with you: the cheapest way to add useful load to your airplane is to take the weight off the pilot.
We also dig into the Dynon versus Garmin conversation everyone's been asking about, this time with real flight hours behind the opinion instead of a hot take, plus where Brett's headed next — a faster, IFR-capable airplane for more family travel, and a floatplane flight together that's already been teased.
If you've followed this show from the beginning, this is the one that brings it full circle.
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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 behind the Patina Cub...the radial-engine build that put him on the map. Shane met a fellow builder named Sam Thieme online, both of them deep into the same kind of Super Cub project, trading ideas and talking about going into business together. Then Sam passed away before they ever met in person. Later, Sam's dad reached out and asked Shane to finish his son's airplane. Shane took it on, built it his own way with the radial engine he'd always wanted, and the result became as much a tribute as a build.
From there we get into what he's chasing now: a turbine-powered bush plane, built in front of thousands of people watching online, with backers getting their name on the finished airplane. And on top of all of it, Shane's mid-move from Canada to Idaho — E2 visa approved, hangar hunting already underway — chasing a bigger builder-assist market and a flying culture that doesn't exist the same way north of the border.
If you've ever wondered what it takes to go from oil rigs to one of the most distinctive shops in backcountry aviation, this one's for you.
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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 it than you'd guess. From there, it branches into a growing list of outposts: a wingshooting strip, a spot along the Clinch River, a stick-and-rudder strip with a 2-degree slope, and one near some of the best fly-fishing in the region.
Jeff didn't start flying until he was 40, then built and flew a string of airplanes himself before helping stand up Rockwood Aviation to develop the airport. Matt is the RAF's Tennessee Ambassador and flies for a living outside his volunteer work building the network.
If you've ever wondered what it actually takes to stand up a backcountry network from nothing...the land deals, the landowner relationships, the volunteer hours nobody sees, this one's for you.
See the launch video HERE
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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 writes the story - a rare view from all three sides of the fence.
We get into what actually makes a competition STOL airplane fast (weight, prop, tires, tuning - not just headline numbers), the design philosophy behind Tundra's full-castering, brake-steered tailwheel, and how a career-ending injury from his time as a firefighter/paramedic ended up pointing him toward aviation fabrication. Oh - and he took this call from a riverbank in the Idaho backcountry, fishing rod in hand, and hijacked the format a little. You'll hear it.
Tundra Tailwheels website
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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 Flight Ops for the Liberty Foundation — including flying a P-40N on a live .50-cal mission documented on film this past July.
We get into how Ray's start in warbirds was scrappier than his résumé suggests — as a teenager, he washed airplanes just to earn rides in the back seat of a Japanese "Kate" torpedo bomber replica, one of the airframes built for Tora! Tora! Tora!Years later, when the owner had a medical issue, Ray ended up training under a WWII-era instructor and soloing that same airplane himself.
There's also a smaller-world moment neither of us expected: one of the Fowlers cut their teeth instructing local kids in a J-3 Cub through a youth aviation program Ron Alexander started at Peach State — the same program that lives on today as RAYAP, right at my own home strip.
And then there's the backcountry chapter, which started almost by accident — a favor flying a Carbon Cub out to Utah that turned into an annual pilgrimage, then a CubCrafters dealership, then a full lifestyle. Their take on what backcountry flying feels like, even after a career full of warbirds and fighter jets, is one of the best lines to come out of any episode so far.
If you've ever wondered what it looks like to go from fighter jets and airline flying to grass strips and gravel bars, this one's for you.
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