I was about 50 miles into the Utah west desert yesterday, landed at one of my favorite desert airstrips, did the usual walkabout enjoying the nothingness, solitude and quietness of the area, then decided to take off ... only to discover that one of my tires had had an alien encounter with one of the multitude of natural desert plants, the "Stickerous Thorni" (or something like that) and the plant had successfully removed all the air from that tire. It was at that very moment that I fully realized the value of one of my "must haves" in my plane:
Instead of being stranded with no one knowing where I was and no way to make a repair I was able to "filler 'er up" and fly home. It also reminded me that it would be more than an excellent idea to carry a SPOT (or other personal locator) with us when we fly. What WOULD each of us do if we were in a remote location and had any kind of problem? I've been thinking about that lately. It happened to a good pilot in a neighboring state just last week and because he had a way to notify friends, he had help within 2 hours of "pushing the button".