RV flight performance makes them pretty good short/steep strip airplanes with adequate engine/prop and a sensible pilot (who knows his limitations) driving. Those strips you mentioned are relatively good - unless you drop a wheel into a whistle pig hole. The RV Achilles heel is the dinky landing gear and low-to-the-ground wheel fairings. Even Johnson or Smiley can beat up your fairings because of the gaps between the bunch grass. Then there's the pulverization on the underside that accumulates because of small rocks and pebbles (with the possibility of jamming), or, if you remove the fairings, the tail plane, on dirt/gravel strips. You'll rapidly deteriorate your RV regularly operating off back country strips, or all at once with bad luck.
The few times I use our -7 on JC or Smiley are for light-load day trips to moderate the beating. The 172 gets taken to all other ID strips.
John Siebold
Boise, ID
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RV Bushplane
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