Brush plane STOL competition
 

Amazing stuff...take off and land in less than 35 feet!

2011 Valdez May Day Fly-In STOL Competition - YouTube

WOW. That is some impressive flying!

One thing is that these airplanes are special versions and are HIGHLY modified for this competition. A friend of mine has flown the one that has nitros and he said that even with his thousands of hours in Cubs that it was so powerful that he was afraid to hit the nitros button during takeoff.

Crazy - love it!

A guy in a hangar across from mine was there with his Cub.

Used a prop for the competition with the pitch set so that the airplane's max speed is about 55 mph.
In automotive terms, we call that "Granny Gear".

Used a different prop to fly from Seattle, of course....

The original Stork was used in WW2 to rescue Mussolini from the top of a mountain.

This is a modern 3/4 version:
Slepcev Storch - Storch Aviation Serbia, home of Slepcev Storch
"The aircraft will fly at 22mph at full flap and 30% of power. Take off run into a 16mph wind is vertical with no forward roll."

Awesome stuff. I saw a Stork fly in FL at the "Fantasy of Flight" museum, incredible stuff.

One of my bucket list items is to fly rural Alaska, preferably on both tires and floats.

My Minimax will break ground just as well as most if not all of the airplanes in the vid but without brakes, I cannot land/stop as short nor would I want to subject it to the possibility of a hard landing as it has rigid landing gear.

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A pilot friend of mine was in his STOL airplane on approach when the tower asked him to go around because they had a corporate jet coming in hot.

His response was "no thanks I will just wait right here." He just slowed down until the jet screamed past and he resumed is turn-in to final.

I once saw a Twin Otter (the OLD Frontier airlines flew them on mountain routes) at Stapleton (the OLD Denver Airport) taxi out from the gate, a few feet down the taxiway and onto the runway.

Once on the runway, it lifted off like a kite. Zero takeoff run. It was into a moderate wind, but not that high a wind.

Amazing.

i get nervous at landing speeds below @130knots!

I have had several takeoffs like that in a stiff breeze with the Minimax especially in the cold winter air on skiis on top of crusty snow. Throttle full, stick slightly forward then back all in one smooth motion.... flying in well under 50'. :eek: It will hang on the prop at full throttle at approximately a 45 degree angle "indicating" just over 20 mph.