FEATURED RAF SUPPORTER: MIKE HINES
Mike Hines was one of those kids who at age 14 worked all month saving up money for an hour of dual instruction in a Cessna 150. He earned his PPL while still in high school, including spin and aerobatic training. This was in the 1970s at the old Ventura County Airport in Oxnard, California, “Before it got so busy,” Mike says. He’d fly solo cross country to the old Rancho California airport, which has given way to Temecula commercial development.
Mike and his wife Nancy now live near Polson, Montana and have been spotted more than once mowing the vast grassy areas surrounding the RAF’s Ryan Field above West Glacier, each operating a large-deck lawnmower. For years, they hauled mowers and a brush hog the 140-mile round trip to help out at their own expense. Mike has flown in to Montana backcountry airstrips to help at annual work parties as well.
An accomplished photographer, Mike also volunteers his skills during the Ryan Fly-in and other aviation events. “Airplanes are my main focus,” Mike says, but he also packs his camera equipment on his year-round off-road adventures, and has had his images published in several places, including Toyota’s magazine. His shot of kayaking on Flathead Lake made the cover of Montana Outdoors Magazine.
After high school, Mike joined the US Marine Corps and spent four years in the aviation maintenance program. While stationed in Colorado, he joined an aero club. He met and married Nancy there, and they prioritized family and their three children. “Family came first, and I didn’t fly for 35 years,” Mike said.
During that time, Mike worked several years for Martin Marietta, Raytheon, and Northrop. “I became an electrical engineer while at Northrop where we made drone target aircraft and parts of the B2. When Northrop shut down the entire facility of 2,000 employees in 1991, we chose to move to Montana instead of seeking a transfer,” Mike says.
Their passion for four-wheeling began in Colorado, as they awaited snowstorms when they could pull people out of the snow in their four-wheel drive pickup. When the new Jeep TJ Rubicon came out, Mike still remembers the ad stating, “It’s the most fun you can have at three miles an hour.” But it was Nancy’s encouragement that led to one in their garage.
Nancy serves as secretary of the Skyliners 4-Wheel Drive Club, and Mike organizes group rides into the mountains, the favorite being in five-foot deep snow, testing each driver’s off-road skills, often requiring the clever use of a winch.
An innovator of electronic control devices, Mike has had success building and selling his products through his website, Hellroaring Technologies, Inc. Some of Mike’s designs are 20 years old, but are still in demand. The year they sold 30,000 units to a military contractor seemed like a good time to celebrate. “As we were sitting in our hot tub, I said to Nancy, I’ve always wanted an airplane,” and in 2009 he found the ideal low-time 2004 Cessna 182 in North Carolina and had it ferried to Montana, and bought a hangar for it at the Polson Airport.
Mike earned his instrument rating, and stays current, logging the required approaches before they expire. Although he chooses to avoid IMC, he sometimes needs the skills to fly in summer’s smoky conditions in the West.
The RAF appreciates Mike and Nancy and all they do for the organization, in addition to their busy lives growing their business, maintaining their acreage, tending laying hens, and efforts to keep the bears from ruining all their many fruit trees. “We have some sacrificial trees that we let the bears have, but the rest is fenced now — the pruned cherry, apple, peach, plum, and pear trees,” Mike adds.
Submitted on August 14, 2025