Skills. Robert Jones has them. He’s a backcountry pilot. Aviators from all walks of life seek him out. From Hollywood star Harrison Ford to the owner of airplane service station Aero Mark, pilots in prep-mode want Jones in the cockpit with them. “He’s the best,” says Bob Hoff, Aero Mark owner. “He can teach a whole variety of flying skills.”
Students learning to fly wild ranges recruit the war-trained pilot turned mountain navigator, but teaching wasn’t the plan in the beginning. Fighting was. Jones comes from the World War II era. Going from high school to cadet school with the Army Air Corps seemed like the natural order of things. “The war ended when my fighter pilot training finished,” says Robert Jones, commercial pilot and flight instructor. “If I stayed in, I didn’t know how much flying I would get so I came home.” The Lorenzo native found plenty of flying time when he came home. He shuffled a heavy flight plan and a full-time career as a site engineer. “My wife deserves a lot of credit here,” Jones says. “I was so busy and gone so much between the site and flying, she was really good at taking over the house and the kids.” When Jones retired from the site in 1991, the sky schedule didn’t ease up. He continued to rack up hours in cockpits owned by everyone else. “I have never owned an airplane in my life.” he says. “I did all the flying I had time for in so many different airplanes that I had no use for my own airplane.” His awards generalize him as the best flight instructor, but he has a specific skill set students are after. His backcountry specialty is short airstrips, deep canyons and no other way in or out. He’s handled those conditions for 68 years logging more than 20,000 hours during his part-time pilot career. That’s more than two years in the air. “To think that you could fly all that time and only have two quits is amazing,” Jones says. “I’ve never had an accident in all my years, but I’ve had two forest landings with power failures about 50 years apart that made my heart race a little.” His racing heart didn’t rattle his mildmannered demeanor. He talks about the airplane power failures as casually as a flat tire on a car. That’s why his students like him. “His calmness gave me a lot of self confidence,” Hoff says. “I just enjoyed lessons from him because of his teaching demeanor. Bob made it fun.” So fun that Jones also taught Hoff’s mother, sister, brothers, wife and son to fly. They are a few of the hundreds of pilots taught by Jones. At 71, Hoff still flies with Jones who is now 87, but Hoff seems to be the only one aging. “I’ve aged a lot over the years and he hasn’t,” Hoff says. “He’s the same guy he was then and he’s still a great instructor. He’s just one of those people you always enjoy being with and when he walks away, he leaves too soon.” Millgate is a freelance writer based in Idaho Falls, Idaho. www.tightlinemedia.com