Plane spotting road trip : Day 7 July 2nd 2024 Aberdeen ID => Missoula MT - 5 airfields

A beautiful warm and cloudless day, we left our friends in Aberdeen Idaho and headed north along SR39 and soon after about 30 miles passed through the small town of Rockford.  I am not sure I would call it a town and I am not sure the farm strip at the north of it is worthy of the title municipal airport bestowed upon it, but there we are - its code is K2U4 and is right on the side of the road.  There were three aircraft present, a straight tail Cessna 150, a PA28 stripped of paint and a  Czech Zlin Savage Cub, one of the many Piper Cub clones out there.  I didn't know it was built by the Czech company - and I didn't get the registration...

Zlin Savage Cub

Next SR39 runs into the town of Blackfoot where we made a slight detour to the north of the town - this place was worthy of being called a town! - to McCarley Field, a more aptly named municipal airport (code (KU02).  There were quite a few GA types and the only thing a bit different was an Air Tractor from Rigby 40 miles up the road.  There were also a couple of tanks land side too.

N427NS ~ Air Tractor AT-802A ~ Visser Ag [Rigby ID]

We then headed north west up the SR26 through to Arco where I skipped the airfield (there are Air Tractor's here too, making the news recently with a pair involved in a mid air collection) and pushed on up the SR93 up to Challis.  After a quick lunch, we stopped at the airport (code KCHL) where there were only four aircraft present, the most exciting being a Mooney.

N7159U ~ Mooney M20E Super 21

We continued north and this was a beautiful road through the Salmon-Challis National Park following the Salmon River to the town of Salmon.  They also have a municipal airport named Lemhi County (code KSMN).  This is home to Gem Air who operate scheduled flights to Boise with a fleet of Cessna 208 Caravan's, plus 172's, 206's and BN Islander's.  They have a large hangar with a small terminal which dominates the north side of the airport.  To the south is the Salmon Air Base which is home to fire fighting helicopters and a I saw a couple of B212's.  They also have a four old Huey fuselages which are called repellers (appreciate it if anyone has the ID's).  I also saw a Canadian registered AS350 AStar and the usual spatter of GA, the most exciting being a Lancair, C421 and A1 Husky.

N28HX ~ Bell 205A-1 ~ Helicopter Express [DeKalb Peachtree GA] ~ ex N1437W, VH-UHQ, C-GRVQ & N6288Y

2 pairs of Huey "repellers"

Gem Air hangar and ramp

Old Salmon Air terminal, previously name of Gem Air and serves as the terminal building for non Gem Air flights

N80RS ~ Cessna 421B Golden Eagle ~ Golden Eagle Flyers [Denver CO]

C-GSGH ~ Eurocopter AS350B-3 AStar ~ Sander Geophysics [Ottawa ON]

N585SA ~ Cessna 208B Grand Caravan ~ Gem Air [Salmon ID] ~ ex XA-FBZ

We continued north into Montana and did not stop at the small fields at Cumming Triangle, Gomo Fox Field, Hamilton Ravalli County and Stevensville right in to Missoula.  We had heard it was a nice city, so we had a drive around and were left rather disappointed with a poor selection of restaurants and limited parking.  Ended up having dinner at a hotel near the airport where we stayed at the My Place Hotel, there are a few surrounding the airport, this was the other side of the highway so no good views of the airport.  We had a look around the main airport simply called Missoula Montana (code KMSO) in the evening.  There is a main terminal building which is host to the main American carriers with limited regional service:

AS => PDX & SEA with seasonal to SAN

G4 => LAS & IWA with seasonal to LAX, OAK & SNA

AA => DFW also opb Eagle

AA Eagle => DFW with seasonal to ORD & LAX

DL => MSP & SLC 

DL Connection => SLC

F9 => DEN

SY => seasonal to MSP

UA => DEN with seasonal to ORD 

UA Express => DEN with seasonal to ORD & SFO

The main tenant is fire fighters Neptune Aviation who now have a fleet of BAe 146's / Avro RJ's.  They were all out being summer, but they have a couple of spares frames sat around.  There is a preserved Lockheed P2 Neptune in the central median outside the terminal, after which the company is named.

N480NA ~ BAe 146-200 ~ Neptune Aviation Services [Missoula MT] (55th frame built in Hatfield for PSA) ~ ex N145AC, N697A, SE-DRF, G-CBFL & D-AMGL

N4235N ~ Lockheed SP-2H Neptune ~ Neptune Aviation Services [Missoula MT] ~ ex USN BuNo 144681 built 1959

The other big tenant is the Museum of Mountain Flying who have a Beech 18 outside and a home built biplane on top of a container at the back (it was closed late evening when I was there).  There is a sizeable GA and business jets scene, Neptune operate a couple themselves and the largest was an Aero Legacy 600.  There was also the obligatory Life Flight Network heli, this time a B407.

N38AJ ~ Bell 407GXi ~ Life Flight Network [Aurora OR]

N9327Z ~ Beech D18S ~ Museum of Mountain Flying [Missoula MT] ~ ex N8037H

N809TD ~ Embraer EMB-135BJ Legacy 600 ~ Aero [Van Nuys CA] ~ ex N809SG

As always, photographs of all aircraft seen with histories and details are on my Flickr page, sorted into albums by airport alphabetically 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23870098@N04/albums