Chatted w Bob Hoff today. We talked about the event and the STOL demo.
Said he had to leave the Stag due to weather but got it home couple days ago.

Any PIREPS?

It was a good event, just unfortunate weather on Saturday. A lot of folks didn’t fly in because of the weather forecast, and unfortunately, the forecast was accurate.

Friday weather was glorious, though, so lots of things going on then. The STOL demo was moved to Friday evening and was well attended. Bobs performance in the Staggerwing was impressive, to say the least.....he’s pretty much got that beast wired, every landing was near perfect. Eddie Abraham’s (sp.??) performance in the Husky was also impressive, good consistently short landings. Lots of fun, and noise. Crowd was pleased.

Though Saturday was wet, the exhibitors in the Hangar were happy, the rain drove folks inside.

MTV

X2 with what MTV said.
Most impressed with the AOPA staff, Very organized and dedicated. Obviously an "all hands on deck" effort.

Friday was a good day for sure. And Jimmy ran the STOL Demo with the speed and safety he usually does. We managed to squeeze in three runs for each plane over the pylons.

I had a videographer from AOPA on board with me and he had Go Pro's mounted all over the inside and outside of the 185 so AOPA should have a good video of the event. AOPA also promised to share the raw footage so when that happens I'll put a video together with their footage and some ground perspective footage I've got.

The STOL Seminar was also well attended and received. My assistant Shanon Facebook Live'd most of it.

Glad to hear it was a success!
Thanks Mike, Phil and of course Bob for your participation and efforts.
Sorry I didn’t get to attend but it sounds like y’all were able to make a positive impression on a lot of pilots and wannabes.

I flew in from Idaho Falls on Thursday. Since nothing was set up or open yet I walked to the other end of the field where the smoke jumper's academy is. That was an int4eresting tour. The National Weather Service ha a facility next to the smoke jumper's school, so I stopped in to talk to a meteorologist. He painted a pretty dire picture for Saturday. A big low was coming down from the gulf of Alaska and was sucking moisture all the way from Hurricane Bud in Baja. He also mentioned that he was surprised AOPA chose June for the fly-in in Missoula. He mentioned that June is the wettest month in Montana. Sounds like poor strategic planning to me. Anyway, the WX forecast was bad enough that I skipped my participation in the Flyout to Crystal Lakes and headed through Mullen Pass to NW Washington mid day on Friday. Home is on the NW corner of Puget Sound. I was just in Idaho Falls for work. On Thursday evening and Friday morning I met folks that flew small planes in from New York, Arkansas and Missouri. That's a LONG way to go considering there are AOPA fly-ins closer to each of those states later this year. One thing all of these pilots had in common was a desire to see the mountains in the western part of this fine country. One of them even scheduled a mountain flying course while out west. That's pretty darned cool.

When I calculated the flight time from here to Missoula, I felt like I didn't want to do that, considering I had a fair idea that the weather for the stretched weekend was going to be marginal. I don't mind a couple hours or so enroute for a weekend fly in, but that would have been no wind of 4 hours if I could have gone direct, but a safer route would have been no wind 5 1/2 hours, either requiring a midway fuel stop. Flying longer to get to OSH for a week, even with OSH variable weather, is acceptable, but I didn't think that would be.

I have only been to one AOPA fly in since they changed the format to having several around the country. It was at Colorado Springs, which was very handy for me. I also was impressed with the onsite staff, who were very helpful. I was unimpressed with the woman who was "in charge" of arranging for camping--although that's admittedly hard to do from Fredricksburg, she had most of her information wrong, primarily the availability of camp spots. She had no information about whether the tents could be erected near the airplanes, what the parking area was like (she thought it would be asphalt), and I concluded that she'd never tented in her life. As it turned out, there was plenty of room to park and camp on a smooth gravel surface, and there were enough porta potties. The one thing missing was a nearby water supply, but one of the onsite AOPA staff guys helped me get water with a golf cart to transport it.

I met some great people there, as I have at all fly-ins. All in all, a very enjoyable excursion at the time.

Cary