Flying can be a dangerous obsession, especially in the mountains of Montana. But for Myron "Mike" Strand, flying over rocky no-man's land was how he earned his pay, and he's amassed an incredible safety record.

Strand, a local aviation icon, recently earned the Wright Brothers' Master Pilot award. The honor, presented by the Federal Aviation Administration's Safety Team, is given to pilots who exhibit professionalism, skill, aviation expertise and who have maintained safe flight operations for 50 years or more.

"I call it the old-timer's award," the 77-year-old Strand said.

The award doesn't require an accident-free history, but pilots with a track record of incidents are disqualified. Although not a requirement for the award, Strand still maintains his license and passes his flight physicals.

Strand's daughter, who is a professional pilot in Colorado, nominated her father for the award.

According to Steven Jones, FAA Safety Team program manager, Montana has about 20 pilots who have earned the Master Pilot honor. Once his office receives the nomination, a detailed search into the pilot's background begins.

SINCE HIS first solo flight 54 years ago, Strand has had a few close calls, including a miserable night in the Scapegoat Wilderness area after his helicopter ran low on fuel. He made a precautionary landing and waited for someone to bring him more fuel in the morning.

His only serious accident occurred in 1960 in the wilds of Alaska. Strand was serving as an Army pilot during a five-year stint in the Land of the Midnight Sun. He and his co-pilot had finished dropping rations to soldiers on a foot patrol in the Brooks Range, and the aviators decided to land their float plane in a nearby lake to go fishing.

A couple of hours went by, and the plane's leaky floats took on more water than Strand realized. The pair climbed in the plane and prepared to take off.

"We almost made it out," Strand said. "Any number of other things, and it wouldn't have happened."

Instead of an easy flight back to base, the heavy aircraft clipped the trees at the lake's edge. Plane and pilots both plunged into the Alaskan tundra.

"I only had seven or eight hours of float-plane flying back then," Strand said. "I was pretty green."

Strand, who grew up in Eastern Montana, said he probably wouldn't have become a pilot if not for the Korean War. He went to college in Bozeman and enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, which required a three-year active duty commitment after graduation.

Strand applied for flight school and was accepted, but he decided not to go. After graduation, and staring at the possibility of being sent to Korea as an infantry officer, his interest in flight school rekindled.

"Ten days later, I was in flight school," Strand said.

Seven months later, Strand was performing observation flights in L-19 Bird Dogs over Korea. The war was winding down in 1954, but Strand still spent 19.5 months away from home.

After the war, Strand thought he would make a career of the Army, but his children grew tired of moving every couple of years. He left active duty after 12 years of flying for the Army, but he found a new home in Kalispell when he started his own flying business. He also flew Huey helicopters for the Montana National Guard for 14 years before retiring as a major.

STRAND AND his wife, Marilyn, founded Strand Aviation in 1967. Four years later, he installed the signature red airplane at his business' entrance on U.S. 93.

"When I came here, no one was really teaching flying," Strand said. "People got really excited about it; they just flocked in. The sky was full of my Cherokees."

Over the next 30 years, Strand's business would train hundreds of pilots. Strand also flew charter flights, snow surveys, game surveys and fire patrols - anything to "put corn flakes on the table."

"The snow surveys were very interesting, and it was very hard work," Strand said. "I got to watch the bears come out first in the spring. I saw some country."

He also did a lot of work as the search coordinator for Northwest Montana and offered his services as a flight ambulance before the days of the ALERT helicopter.

"I did a lot of night flying for that," Strand said. "It would be the middle of the night, and the phone would ring. I carried a lot of people out of here."

Strand can recount dozens of success stories from his air ambulance flights, including a flight that saved Milt Mercord, one of the founders of the First Federal Savings and Loan of Kalispell. The financial institution became Glacier Bancorp. Another of his memorable ambulance flights included former Montana Governor Hugo Aaronson.

In spite of the thousands of hours of search missions, rescue flights

and survey flights through the mountains, Strand developed an impressive record of safety.

"First, I don't take off in junk," he said. "I know a lot of people who had reputations for flying any piece of junk that came around. The thing about flying is that you make your own risk."

Strand contrasted flying to a football game.

"In football, when the whistle goes off you have to put your team on the field," he said. "You might not like what you see, but you're stuck with it.

"In flying, you don't have to go out. You can choose not to fly."

STRAND SOLD his business 10 years ago, but he's stayed active in aviation. He now keeps his plane at the old Eagle Aviation grounds off of Airport Road. He also keeps an office there, where he has more flying awards than he does wall space.

He flies less and less as he ages - now he logs about 50 to 60 hours each year. Strand said he still likes to fly, but he doesn't crave it like he used to. He can pull out a foot-high stack of log books from his desk drawer that show only a portion of his total flight time.

These days, he likes to get in his car and experience Montana from the ground.

"I'd never seen a lot of these places from the ground except for the last couple of years," he said.

Strand said that he'll keep flying as long as he's still physically qualified. Few pilots keep taking to the skies after they turn 80.

"If you don't fly much, there comes a point in time where you'll lose your confidence," Strand said. "Because of my experience, I still have a lot of confidence in my abilities. It'd be a lot different if I was learning how to fly today."

Reporter Michael Richeson may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at mricheson@dailyinterlake.com