I know at least one board member who believes that banner towing is the most dangerous activity known to man.
Fire flying involves circling about in the country, looking at the pretty fires and the big trees and burning squirrels, and waving back at all the nice men and women in in their crisp, yellow shirts as they enjoy a good hike on the hillside. A casual jaunt from the airport to the fire and back is a nice way to break up a dull morning or afternoon of laying under the wing waiting for a dispatch, and good preparation for the afternoon nap.
Ag flying involves gently maneuvering around various farm implements while providing needed chemicals and fertalizers to plants to help them grow. It provides an excellent opportunity to spend some relaxing time in the country, and to visit fields, trees and powerlines that you might not normally see. Ag flying is an excellent opportunity to practice stabilized approaches into big open wide fields that are devoid of circle irrigation, standpipes, tractors, and illegal power taps, while enjoying the pleasure of flying next to soft crops, furrows, and trees. Most of all, ag flying gives that warm fuzzy reward in one's heart, knowing one is free to give back to one's fellow mankind.
Flying in the back country is a wonderful opportunity to hunt deer with one's propeller, to test unimproved surfaces for compatatility with one's landing gear, and to occasionally go where no man has gone before. Or wanted to go before. Back country flying allows one to work on one's mental math skills, to contemplate philosophy, and to live free and unfettered from the clutches of the modern airspace system. Flying back country allows one to relax in the country while visiting roadless climes, while exposing one's self to the character building elements of extreme cold, heat, and wind from inside the luxuriously appointed interior of the finest Cessna 185's, 206's, and PA-18's that the industry has to offer. One can wake up in the dark hours and warm one's oil and then after a breakfast fit for a deposed king, lazily saw the snow and frost from one's upper wing using a tie down rope, while chewing a frozen donut.
Obviously none of you have ever given your mother in law a ride somewhere in an airplane. If you had, you'd know the true meaning of hell. Not that giving her the ride is difficult, but to fight one's inner demon, to hold back when every fiber of your being is telling you to shove her out the door and follow her down to a glorious splattering on the desert floor far from any whitnesses or prying eyes...just holding back and getting her safely to where ever it is the old bag is going to haunt...now that's perhaps the toughest flying one can ever do.
