Just thinking about the 206 drivers in PNG and the real skills these guys had to have to survive.
I was spoiled with a nearly 600hp turbine dragging my bum around in one of the best STOL aircraft ever built where an extra ton in the back only reduced the performance from fantastic to very good. Bad weather - just stick on the oxygen mask and zip up to above 20,000. The endurance was the only thing that got us nervous.
I had a few drives of loaded 206's and flew as passenger a number of times and the continuous pre-planning of routes, approaches and constantly treading a fine line between the ridge line or cloud gap rising or falling in the windscreen as you struggled to get over really got me edgy. It is a credit to their pilots' skill that many more 206's and 185's are not perched in an unknown treetop somewhere on a PNG mountainside.
I think as they graduated to Barons, 402's and Twin Otters and were able to actually get away from the enroute threats a bit more (the bigger aircraft came with their own but different problems) they continued to draw on their puckered sphincter 206 experiences to provide a safer operation. Of course many went on to airlines and I bet there are still the odd occasions when the 206 training helps to provide a 747 captain with that little extra margin.
My hat is certainly off to you guys.