The Recreational Aviation Foundation looks to the future

“If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Those two questions were the basis for the Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF).

“These guiding words are as appropriate today as they were a number of years ago when a small group of pilots asked them on that starlit night, sitting around a campfire at a backcountry airstrip,” say officials with the foundation, which is celebrating its 21st year in 2024.

Initially founded by a group of Montana pilots who realized recreational airstrips were under threat of closure, the foundation has grown to more than 11,000 supporters from all 50 states plus more than 13 foreign countries.

Over the past two decades, the RAF has earned its standing in the aviation community, thought of as the “go-to” group for preserving, improving, and creating backcountry airstrips on public and private lands.

And as the leadership looks towards the future, those in charge say a big part of their work is to ensure the RAF sticks to its long-held mission. Part of that is encouraging — and appreciating — the foundation’s volunteers.

“We want to maintain the spirit of volunteerism,” says Co-Founder and Chairman of the Board John McKenna of Bozeman, Montana, a 6,000-hour pilot who regularly flies a Cessna 185 Skywagon. “It very much is a family-oriented, people-driven organization.”

While the organization is “all about building airstrips, taking care of them, and improving them, it’s also about building communities,’” he continues.

“If you give someone a purpose, they will move mountains for you,” he says. “What’s important is to feel like you are a productive part of the world. The RAF is that way because we mean it. It’s not lip service.”

The foundation has a nationwide reach, with more than 300 backcountry airfields listed on its Airfield Guide.

It also has supporters in every state across the nation. The organization doesn’t call them members as there is no fee to becoming involved in the RAF.

Supporters often donate to the foundation, many with financial contributions, but even more with their time and energy. Members show up to work parties, volunteering to do the heavy lifting to keep their airstrips open.

That could be something as simple as mowing the grass, or adding a shower house like they did at Rainelle Airport (WV30) in West Virginia, or a barn raising at Ryan Airfield (2MT1) in Montana, or a years-long collaborative effort to reopen closed airports, such as Cornucopia Field Airport (23W) in Wisconsin.

According to McKenna, RAF’s objective isn’t to be the biggest group around.

“Our objective is to do more of what we’re doing,” he explains. “We don’t do anything that we cannot afford to pay for. If we take on a new project, by the time the public sees it, we have already mapped out a financial strategy.”

With just 2.5 paid employees, the foundation is not “laden with overhead costs,” he says, noting, “90% of our money goes to the mission.”

The paid employees are the organization’s director of marketing and a volunteer coordinator, as well as McKenna’s wife Tricia, a pilot who serves as administrative director. The rest of the senior team, all state liaisons, RAF Ambassadors, and a 16-member group called RAF Vice Presidents of Appreciation, are all volunteers.

So, too, are the members of the younger leadership group called the Vy Group.

“Everybody knows that’s best rate of climb in aviation,” McKenna says. “We are making a concerted effort to grow talent within the RAF to fill leadership roles as we go forward. We initiated this over a year ago, giving them more projects that are leadership related.”

A not-so-secret to success for the RAF is its partnerships and agreements with various organizations, from state pilot associations to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association to government entities.

“We are the only aviation organization with maintenance agreements with the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service,” he says.

The organization also has agreements with state aeronautics officials, as well as the Nature Conservancy, which manages backcountry airstrips in Maine and Arkansas.

Today’s RAF is a far cry from the small organization formed in 2003.

For one thing, RAF officials are “far smarter” about how to provide support to an endangered airfield, according to McKenna.

“In the beginning, what typically happened was that somebody would come along and find an airstrip that was threatened,” he says. “But by that time they were screaming into an empty room. The Forest Service, for example, typically had been through two or three years of planning by the time the pilots heard about it at a listening session. The Forest Service people wanted to know ‘where were you two years ago when we started this?’”

“What we recognized was that you have to be a part of it way before this,” McKenna continues. “Knowing how they operate and knowing who the decision makers are is as important as knowing what the process is. We recognized very quickly that our organization, if it was going to have any real legs, needed to have a national footprint. We started making about three or four trips to Washington, D.C., each year to see where we fit in the overall landscape of land-use planning.”

Responsible for those advocacy efforts are the senior leadership team, which includes McKenna, RAF President Bill McGlynn, Vice President Tim Riley, and Treasurer Mike Perkins, as well as five other directors, Bill Brine, Pete Bunce, Jeff Russell, Todd Simmons, and Steve Taylor.

McKenna, 70, who has been a pilot since 1970, notes that the RAF is all he does.

“The same goes for Bill McGlynn, our president,” he says. “I think I speak for our entire volunteer board when I say that our mission is the first thing we think about when we get up in the morning. Otherwise, why would they work so hard and put so much time in?”

For more information: TheRAF.org