Wx blowing in so had to restrict myself to wide open country. Stumpy too.

Nice video. Very nice plane as well.

What is going on these days over at Backcountry Super Cubs ? http://www.supercub.com/

I suppose like all the other "cub" manufacturers, except CubCrafters, they may be looking at some name changes. I spoke with the factory about 2 years ago. They seem like very nice people with a great product.

Your SQ2 video does make a favorable impression. Thanks for posting

Every time I fly across that lake I'm tempted to land. Any backlash from the locals?

That looked fun, and yes, stumpy. Thanks for sharing!

Denali wrote:...What is going on these days a Backcountry Super Cubs? http://www.supercub.com/
I suppose like all the other "cub" manufacturers, except CubCrafters, they may be looking at some name changes. I spoke with the factory about 2 years ago. They seem like very nice people with a great product...

I've only dealt with Bruce Reed, the owner of Backcountry Super Cubs and he is a friendly, very conscientious guy. And of course Randy Goza, from whom I bought my SQ2, and Wayne Mackey, the inventor of the SQ series of planes, both who still work with Bruce in promoting and building the SQ series planes. The plane itself is without equal for what it's designed to do. I'm still a long ways from being able to take full advantage of its capabilities - hopefully in another year or two I'll be there.

Renegade wrote:Every time I fly across that lake I'm tempted to land. Any backlash from the locals?

I've never had any problems or complaints. Just stay away from houses on the shore, and the few fishermen or dog walkers you might see. But be careful where you land, some of the sandy areas can be quicksand like and even 35's can get stuck.

Oops

Last time I saw a stuck cub at a lake, it took a skid steer bobcat to get it out. It was buried past the axles and resting on the pod. That was fun.

This was back in the Summer and the island had only been above water for a couple of days. I dragged it, it felt fine, so I came around and landed. Was doing fine till I tried to turn the plane around and stepped on the brakes, it punched right thru the crust. Stuck like a bug. The only place on the entire lake where there isn't a stump. Had a friend air drop a shovel (to use as an anchor for the come-along - I completely forgot I had Abe's Tie-downs in the plane), a come-along, and some rope. He found a couple of fishermen and guided them to me. The three of us got it back out of the holes, I turned it around by hand and off I flew.

Important takeaway's from my 4 hour adventure? Even on local flights carry everything you need to extricate yourself. For me that means:

1. An E-tool.
2. A rope come-along system
3. Two 50' lengths of low stretch mountain climbing rope.
4. A LifeStraw. (Got awfully thirsty in those four hours and the bottled water my friend dropped all burst when they hit the sand. Plenty of water in the lake.)
5. Couple of bottles of water.

In addition I also carry a Sven Saw (for clearing runways) and a Gerber Hatchet (for clearing runways and driving Duckbill Earth Anchors). And of course my tool kit. This stuff stays in the plane.

I saw yesterday that the island is disappearing back underwater.

Took a friend up to Propwash (near Dallas) to pick up his CarbonCub. On the way back found a couple of new places so had to just "drop in". Didn't stay to play, burning daylight. Another day.

I find dragging pointless for assessing structural integrity of surfaces and substrates. At near flight speeds,and fast taxis, there is the planing affect of the tires, and not until the actual weight of the aircraft comes off the wings and speeds decrease enough that the true weigh comes to bear on the surface ,will you know if its going to hold up, and if it don't, well it's too late. The best way I found to assess surface conditions is to drop a wet piece of firewood. Bricks and rocks can work, but they are too small to track on the way down. The impact mark will tell you a lot of whats going on just beneath the surface.
Of coarse this varies substantially in river beds as there can be large contrasts in sediments in a small area. My maxims are. Rivers, don't land on anything wet looking. On ocean beaches where sands are more predominate than fines, wet will be consistently firm.

After a little over a month of IFR and LIFR we finally had a great day for flying, so off I went to replenish some of that perishable skill.

At least it doesn't look too wet down there. Up in big D we have had so much freezing rain-sleet-slush-snow-and rain that even flat pastures are too soggy for landings. Even with bushwheels. I think the daily freezing and thawing of the ground has temporarily turned everything the consistency of chocolate pudding. Some small local paved roads are starting to disentigrate from all this mess. I was going to go fly the husky when we had six inches of snow and the ground was frozen yesterday morning but a mechanical problem ruined my fun.

We only got about an inch and a half of rain, most was light drizzle with a cloud layer that went all the way to the ground. No snow and not too much ice. Bummer you couldn't get up today.

We got some snow in graham. It sure was fun to play in

So I got a second day in a row (Woohoo!) to fly before the Wx went to crap again. Took my Texas STOL Roundup assistant with me this time. She's working on her pilot's license and doing it in a proper plane, a 140 (okay just kidding my tricycle friends ).

Started out just off the end of the runway as usual, then headed to a nearby creek bottom, flew some canyons, then to Llano to talk prep for the Roundup with friends. There I met a young flight instructor with his student out of Burnett. I guessed he was the guy that got blocked at the waterfall by an irate ranch foreman and I was correct. Anyway we chatted for a bit and headed our separate ways.

I took my assistant over to Lake Buchanan to show her that area and yes we landed the waterfall among other areas. The last place we landed was the side of a stock pond (we call them tanks here in Texas). I spotted the yellow SuperCub from Llano, turned the radio back on, and gave my young instructor friend advice on where I thought he and his student could land. Nice to have another fat tire pilot in the area.

Apparently the Vimeo tag doesn't work with Tapatalk, at least not on my iPhone. So here is the link:
https://vimeo.com/129725633

Nice video, looks like there's some neat strips out there. I liked the shot of all those Cubs taking off one after the other, and the quad copter footage was cool too.

robw56 wrote:... and the quad copter footage was cool too.

At the risk of hijacking my own thread, my position on drones has been pretty clear, I hate the idea of them being in the same airspace I fly in. But I have to admit the video capabilities are nothing short of absolutely amazing. I was blown away with the footage as well. And disturbed with the video at the end as the copter goes far above where we'd been flying the contest - but it's beautiful footage. It was being operated by a licensed pilot, and a backcountry pilot to boot, so I knew he was being very careful and conscientious.

As I'm sure everyone whose been following the news knows, our part of Texas got a lot of rain in a very short time, massive flooding and loss of life occurred. More then two weeks later Search & Recovery is still underway. We've had a couple of SAR TFRs up for a while now. Interesting thing is take a look at the TFR altitude.


Drones are being used for the SAR operation. Having seen what they can do in person I now understand their benefit. But I'm still not happy with non-pilot, darwin award contenders using them.

Wouldn't be too surprised if I ended up with one at some point.

I have watched every video and looked at every picture on here a hundred times...Now if July 10th will just hurry up and get here so I can start my build!

AKT