General aviation is growing. That simple statement would have been unremarkable to a pilot in the 1960s or 1970s, as surprising as saying the sun rose in the east that day. But for anyone who learned to fly after about 1990, and especially between 2008 and 2016, it’s a shocking thing to admit. Yet that is exactly what is happening right now, as data from a wide variety of sources show. 

The landing went smoothly. As I taxied the Cub toward where I wanted to park, we hit a patch of quicksand that I hadn’t spotted from the air. Within the blink of an eye, the bushwheels sank, bringing the plane to an abrupt stop and sending its propeller into the sand and tail into the air.

I touched the wheels down in the soft green grass, and all I could think about was Jim Richmond looking down on me. Smiling with his soft grin, as I, the youngest Carbon Cub builder, had just landed back at the same airstrip where I developed my love for aviation.

I rolled into a turn to the right to line up with the drop point. We were hit by ground fire and the sound did not resemble a rock hitting a tin can that we normally heard. The round had come through the window of the right front door of the aircraft and hit a litter stanchion. After continuing the mission and landing back at Saigon, one of the Vietnamese kickers came up and handed me some shrapnel.

As we approached the halfway/decision point, we checked in with Flight Service and sure enough, Bella Bella was now reporting marginal VFR and the clouds below us weren’t as dense as we were able to start seeing the rugged Canadian coast below. We continued with more confidence. After two and a half hours of flight, we made it to a blue skies and puffy cloud Bella Bella.

On this leg the visibility started rapidly dropping in the smoke haze and we were getting worried.  The ceilings were lower than forecast too. We were basically out of flight following range and hoped we didn't meet a huge yellow CL-215 water bomber.