The October AOPA Pilot Magazine has a nice article about the Texas STOL Roundup and its creator, our own Phil Whittimore!

Cool beans....and good publicity Phil. Good on you. Sounds like a great event.

MTV

Thanks Mike for bringing this article to our attention. Nice to have some National recognition of what we love to do from a mainstream aviation organization and magazine.

Seems like maybe you don't need to be a member to read it:

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2016/october/pilot/spectator-sport

That's a great article by AOPA on the event that Phil and his crew worked so hard to make a success. Good job Phil !!

But apparently the techniques that are winning don't work in a 185

Headoutdaplane wrote:But apparently the techniques that are winning don't work in a 185

Well, you do have to take into account that the author DOES in fact, know everything there is to know about aviation.....just ask him.

MTV

Was thinking the same thing...

Different strokes for different folks I guess! I was impressed with the guy's writing! I thought he nailed it describing the event as it happened--and to the general populous. I loved the way the air-bosses took the bull by the horns and commanded us and thought he communicated it well with quotes and words.

Suspect advice - applicable to small-tired airplanes operating from soft (but smooth) fields. Most our planes have larger flotation tires, so the drag from soft isn't there. Also the surfaces we operate from are rougher, hence more concern for the health of the tail wheel. Get it off first, put it down last. From a smooth hard beach I'll set some flap and just let it fly off tail low, but I sure wouldn't do that from a gravel bar with rocks the size of a baby's head.

Funny how an instructor who flies an RV is somehow an expert on "real world" short field ops. Here I was thinking that those "cartoonish tundra tires" allowed us to operate in the real world where lifting the tail out of the terrain minimizes abuse and damage while allowing you to see over the nose to steer down a runway that's no wider than the width of your gear. While we're at it, tell everyone from Paul Clause to Kevin Quinn that they've been doing it all wrong and those "showy techniques" just don't work.

I'm always excited to see articles about the facets of aviation I'm most interested in and Mr Hirschman's article on the Texas STOL roundup was mostly well written and interesting. None the less, lets skip the haughty derision and if you don't know enough about the equipment and the techniques others have refined over thousands of hours of real world use then ask someone who's in the know or just don't comment at all.

Wait a minute, you are being a little obtuse, would you please speak directly to the point?