AOPA is having one of their regional fly-ins at Missoula Montana June 15 & 16, 2018. They've asked us to put on our Texas STOL Roundup competition demo and our STOL/Backcountry Flying Seminar. Both of these will be on Saturday the 16th.

The seminar will be conducted by myself, Mike Vivion, Ken Wittekiend, and Paul Brown.

We are hoping to have a couple of unexpected aircraft fly in the demo. Should be a lot of fun to watch.

I plan on flying either my SQ2 in the demo, which I'll fly down from Alaska, or another SQ from lower 48.

Willie Stene will be flying one of his 185's in the demo, plus he'll be an exhibitor.

I'll keep you guys in the loop as I learn more. Hope to see some of you there.

there is a good chance me and Eddie will be up there at that time. I have a class in SD early that week and another in Cody mid that week and planning on headed up to Kalispell before a week in the backcountry of Idaho. We should be within a short ride. What do you need from us? We will both have Huskies. Eddie should be in his new experimental Husky. Happy to help

Thanks Todd, that's great to know. We are still trying to pin down how much time we have for the demo, and we've got to coordinate with the tower chief as KMSO has lots of inbound/outbound commercial flights that we need to work around, plus all the planes flying to and from the fly-in. We have another conference call with AOPA later today. As soon as we have the logistics locked in I'll let you know and get you talking with Jimmy. Thanks again for the offer. And sounds like you've got a fun trip planned.

I think it would be cool to see another event added which would be exactly the same except the planes operating at gross weight.

I would be interested to see the difference in performance in the same plane with the same pilot. Just use flats of bottles of water, or something equally easy to move and tie down. I guess if folks got serious you would have some scales to make sure nobody is fudging, and although there would be some difference due to fuel burn, I think it would be negligible if they just stayed in the pattern.

You could call it the "Great Gross Out"

Headoutdaplane wrote:I think it would be cool to see another event added which would be exactly the same except the planes operating at gross weight.

I know this is talked about every year at Valdez, especially when planes like Lil Cub are taking home the gold. Removing purpose built competition airplanes from the discussion (and so far none of those fly in lower 48 events) in theory the only thing that should change between light weight and gross weight is the distances for takeoff and landing, and proportionately. The same plane/pilots should do the same relatively speaking. Of course us recreational bush pilots rarely fly at gross weight, whereas you professional bush pilots do more often then not so that would likely change the results in a gross weight event.

An interesting observation flying my SQ2 is when Randy Goza flew it, because he weighs probably 100+ lbs lighter then me, at competition weight he can get off the ground shorter then I can, but coming over the pylons because I'm heavier I can get on the ground quicker then he can. Hmmmm, at gross weight that would even up the weight difference between us. Hmmm.

I actually have some really cool real world bush pilot skills events I'd love to add, but it would turn it into a multiday event so we couldn't do it over just a weekend. Hopefully in the not too distant future interest will allow this. Be super fun and challenging.

On another note I spoke earlier about some interesting additions to the MSO demo. Well thanks to MTV's efforts we will have a Travel Air and a Staggerwing in the demo. Interestingly enough both these aircraft types regularly flew into the Idaho backcountry strips back in the day. Be a fun addition to the demo. Thanks Mike.

If we can haul donated cases of beer at max gross I'm in, but don't be surprised when I don't come back to land [emoji12]

Barnstormer wrote:
On another note I spoke earlier about some interesting additions to the MSO demo. Well thanks to MTV's efforts we will have a Travel Air and a Staggerwing in the demo. Interestingly enough both these aircraft types regularly flew into the Idaho backcountry strips back in the day. Be a fun addition to the demo. Thanks Mike.

The Stag wouldn’t belong to the Hoffs by chance would it?

Sierra Victor wrote:The Stag wouldn’t belong to the Hoffs by chance would it?

Yes it would.

This is awesome. I put it on my calendar. Pretty cool that Hoff is brining up his Staggerwing. Hoff is the kingpin at my home airport, he’s a good guy. Would be cool if he brought up his Beech 18 too. You ought to see if John Bagley will bring up one of his planes, maybe his Bird Dog or something.

Here’s the Hoff’s Stag at cabin creek when my grandfather owned it. This was in ‘44 maybe...? Have the exact dates at my office. Runway at the time was less than 1000 ft.
Anyway I was fortunate enough to fly in it as a child with my grandpa at the controls and then 30 years later with Bob Hoff.
Looks like I’ll have to put TX STOL on the calendar for this fall.

Edit: didn’t it used to be in Oct?
Anyway I like the new June date!!

That has to be one of the coolest Idaho Backcountry photos, along with the Ford Tri-motor at Mile High and the DC3 at Flying B. Bet there are some other cool ones out there. Thanks for sharing!

The June event is not the Texas STOL Roundup (which is the last weekend in September this year) but rather a STOL Seminar and STOL Demo that AOPA has asked us to do at their Missoula Montana Fly-in event in June. Hope to see you at one of them.

Sierra Victor wrote:
Here’s the Hoff’s Stag at cabin creek when my grandfather owned it. This was in ‘44 maybe...? Have the exact dates at my office. Runway at the time was less than 1000 ft.
Anyway I was fortunate enough to fly in it as a child with my grandpa at the controls and then 30 years later with Bob Hoff.
Looks like I’ll have to put TX STOL on the calendar for this fall.

Edit: didn’t it used to be in Oct?
Anyway I like the new June date!!

Barnstormer wrote:That has to be one of the coolest Idaho Backcountry photos, along with the Ford Tri-motor at Mile High and the DC3 at Flying B. Bet there are some other cool ones out there. Thanks for sharing!

The June event is not the Texas STOL Roundup (which is the last weekend in September this year) but rather a STOL Seminar and STOL Demo that AOPA has asked us to do at their Missoula Montana Fly-in event in June. Hope to see you at one of them.

Sierra Victor wrote:
Here’s the Hoff’s Stag at cabin creek when my grandfather owned it. This was in ‘44 maybe...? Have the exact dates at my office. Runway at the time was less than 1000 ft.
Anyway I was fortunate enough to fly in it as a child with my grandpa at the controls and then 30 years later with Bob Hoff.
Looks like I’ll have to put TX STOL on the calendar for this fall.

Edit: didn’t it used to be in Oct?
Anyway I like the new June date!!

Well crap!
No way I’ll make it to Montana in June.

At least I don’t have to feel insulted that Bob and Tom were headed to my neck of the woods and hadn’t given me a heads up! [emoji6]

Fantastic people!! Please send my regards.

I’ll shoot for late Sept in STX. We’ll see

Sierra Victor wrote:At least I don’t have to feel insulted that Bob and Tom were headed to my neck of the woods and hadn’t given me a heads up! [emoji6]

Well...Bob just got back from a transcontinental trip in the Stag. Think it was down to FL, then up the east cost a ways and back to ID. [emoji2]

whee wrote:

Sierra Victor wrote:At least I don’t have to feel insulted that Bob and Tom were headed to my neck of the woods and hadn’t given me a heads up! [emoji6]

Well...Bob just got back from a transcontinental trip in the Stag. Think it was down to FL, then up the east cost a ways and back to ID. [emoji2]

They fly that thing all over the country and fortunately share many of their adventures in the Staggerwing Club Newsletter which Tom does a fantastic job of putting together (it’s more like a magazine). If u like Stags I highly recommend joining.

Every summer I try to make plans to stop in IDA on my annual trip to McCall but I keep running out of time.

For those of you coming or thinking of coming to this fly-in here is the current layout. We will be in the STOL Corral. Be sure and stop by and say Hi.

MTV will be part of a backcountry flying seminar on Friday, and he and I and Paul Brown will do a STOL seminar on Saturday before the STOL demo.