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.
