Learn how these ranchers use aviation on their Texas spreads.

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Take a drive through rural Texas, and you’ll notice the pickup trucks, dusty boots, bois d’arc fence posts (that’s “bow-dark” around here), certified cattle, and rusty barbed wire fences. Maybe you’ll recognize the remnant of a worn-out wire stretcher nailed to the plank wall of a barbeque restaurant where you stop for lunch, but only because your granddad made you mend the fence once as punishment for not eating all your meatloaf.

A modern Texas urbanite who’s a generation or two out of touch with the ranch heritage probably doesn’t know much at all about the vital practice of ranch aviation. He might think of it just as the free flight he’d receive, along with overnight stay and a hearty chuck, if he’d agree to go visit the 35-acre parcels of the ubiquitous in-flight magazine ads. Or, like he learned from reruns, maybe ranch aviation is a heapin’ spoonful of cowboy justice dispensed “from out of the clear blue Western sky” in a Cessna 310B.

Sky King might not be exactly on the money, but consider what we learn from the very first television episode: If the bad man in the black hat who intends to harm your town judge has a three-hour head start up the mountain road, where of course there are no phones, all you got to do is call in some civil aviation to fly up the mountain and save the day.

Ham-fisted as that plot may be, today’s flying ranchers whom you’re about to meet still abide by a few of those Sky King lessons. First, it’s practical, not to mention preferable, to fly an hour over Texas when you’d otherwise drive three. Secondly, it’s perfectly passable to fly your plane out to the ranch just because you want to. And most importantly, aircraft really do hunt down the villains—if your villains happen to be cattle shrinkage, labor costs, lost time, and less- efficient practices. So y’all grab a sarsaparilla, or maybe a Shiner Bock, and sit a spell while we unfold the tale of ranch aviation.

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