The Recreational Aviation Foundation

In the Shadow Of Glacier National Park
Veteran Pilot Donates Backcountry Strip!

The Ryan's donate their Montana airstrip to the RAF for backcountry pilots to enjoy forever. For the complete story of this remarkable donation - Click Here

Read the annual letter to donors as a Word or .pdf file -

Read about the RAF at the 2009 AOPA Summit in Tampa Florida - Click Here

BOZEMAN, MONTANA PILOT SHELTER

The RAF worked with the Bozeman, Montana Airport Authority in constructing a new pilot shelter at the BZN airport. The building can be used by local pilots and transient campers.

Endorsement of Galen Hanselman's work in Utah

In keeping with its mission the RAF recently announced that it is endorsing and supporting a new work by Idaho’s noted author and pilot Galen L. Hanselman. Galen started a new guide to Utah’s backcountry airstrips.

For more of this article - Click Here

RAF HISTORY

IIn 1998, a group of pilots in the Montana Pilots Association (MPA) became concerned with the increasing loss of recreational and backcountry airstrips. As a result, they formed the MPA Recreational Airstrip Committee (RAC) in order to preserve, maintain, and create recreational/backcountry airstrips in the state of Montana. (For RAC information, go to http://www.montanapilots.org/backcountry)

The RAC has made considerable progress in these efforts through working with the Montana Aeronautics Division (MAD), USFS, and BLM. The MPA/RAC participates with the MAD and the USFS in the long-standing cooperative maintenance of backcountry airstrips at Benchmark (3U7), Meadow Creek (0S1), Schafer (8U2), and Spotted Bear (8U4) adjacent to and within the Bob Marshall, Great Bear, and Scapegoat Wilderness Areas complex.

The RAC is presently working diligently to keep existing public use airstrips within the newly designated Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument open for public use. Additionally, the RAC is actively involved in the forest planning process at this time on all USFS forests in the state of Montana including the Gallatin, Beaverhead-Deer Lodge, & Flathead. It is the intention of the RAC to create not only additional opportunities, but to spread recreational use out as opposed to concentrating it on the few strips that exist today.

The RAC conducted a silent auction at the Montana Aviation Conference in Bozeman, and then an online auction the next year to generate revenue to support these efforts. In addition, the RAC received a limited amount of small cash donations. The result was a net income of almost $19K. It became obvious that if significant funding were to be obtained to pursue the goals of the RAC, a non-profit public benefit corporation with IRS 501(c)(3) recognition as a public charity would have to be created. Thus, the RAF was formed to achieve those goals.