Road Trip USA: ‘There is huge potential for epic flights’

There are certain phrases we’re used to hearing at Cross Country. “We did this amazing trip! It’s perfect for the magazine!” The pictures decide and it’s sometimes with trepidation that we click the download link. But one look at Tim Rochas and Pierre Bottero’s epic shots from Utah last summer and we knew this was a story worth following up on. 

With its red canyons, sandstone towers and big desert skies few places are as iconic as the Moab desert. It’s instantly familiar thanks to movies like Thelma and Louise, Independence Day – and it’s where Tom Cruise did those outlandish climbing moves in Mission Impossible II. 

We looked at the shots and thought, what a cool place to fly. And is that Logan Walters piloting a helicopter? 

“It’s an amazing landscape,” explains Tim via a call some months later. “There is a huge potential for making epic flights as well as short flights.” He says the plan was not to go big XC, but simply to enjoy some mind-blowing flights at iconic...