About SP Aircraft

After more than 20 years in business, what began with one aircraft shepherding fishers through the Idaho backcountry has blossomed into a gleaming six-Cessna fleet offering charter service deep into the wilderness. Overseeing the whole operation is SP Aircraft’s founder, Andy Patrick, a charter-industry veteran with many close contacts in the backcountry-outfitter, river-guide, and tour-company arena. The outfit’s trip packages dispense wild majesty and creature comforts in equal measure, much like receiving a foot massage from a grizzly bear. The Sawtooth Air Tour and Backcountry Brunch, for example, begins with a 90-minute flight over the Sawtooth Range, Dagger Falls, and the Deadwood Reservoir and culminates in a multicourse brunch. Meanwhile, the Mackay Bar Overnight Steelhead Fishing on the Main Salmon River trip invites travelers to try their luck on the “River of No Return”—so-called because, unlike most rivers, it only flows one way.