By Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

The romance of flying to an out-of-the-way location, one only accessible with a personal airplane, is a powerful attraction to many pilots and their passengers. Unfortunately, the landing areas at many remote destinations—resorts, fishing camps, islands and lakes come to mind—are not the wide, paved runways we came to know and love during our primary training. Often, the paved runways available at remote “airports” are poorly maintained—bumpy, for example, or marked with well-faded paint. And, if you’re flying something that can land and takeoff on water, you have a completely different set of priorities to consider when trying to find that perfect weekend destination or fishing…