Thank y'all for all the congrats, support and just knowing that so many of you were with me even if you weren't actually in Alaska! It was quite an adventure! I had a couple small problems but nothing major. My SuperSTOL made the trip with flying colors and so did Gary Haley's Highlander. Our airplanes were very evenly matched for the long, long flight. I let him set the pace which was usually his 912S wide open. I have the turbo 130 hp Rotax and I have done some aero clean up on my SS so I could go faster if I wanted but we stayed together the whole trip. I don't know how many of you know Gary Haley, I didn't know him much before this trip but he is very generous, even keeled and just a lot of fun. He made the whole trip so much more enjoyable than it would have been by myself. We usually flew about 95 mph. I flew 60 hours and averaged 4.8 GPH.
The competition itself was actually a very small part of the two week trip. We left Nampa on the 2nd to give ourselves plenty of time to get there in case we had bad weather, which we did for a couple days in Creston BC. We got there the 7th or 8th. Both of us changed our oil and I pulled off my Kiev and bolted on Troy's Catto that he had been kind enough to ship up there for me to use. It was perfect giving me 5900 rpm static. I ran my 26" tires because they gave me the exact same take-off distance as my 31's and were better for the long trip. My braking is also better with the smaller tires.
I was 1st up in my class and I heard them on the radio that my 1st take-off was 71'. I felt like I had kinda blown that one, knowing I could have rotated a split second sooner. I left too much on the table on my 1st landing too, touching down about 10' past the line and getting stopped 49' past the line. I thought OK lets nail this next set. My take-off that time was 54' and I felt like that was about as good as I could possibly do in the conditions we had. Coming in to land I got it reared back and slowed up at axactly the right time and dropped it exactly on the line and stopped really short. Probably 15' shorter than the first one. I was so happy becaause I thought I had just made the perfect landing! Then my bubble was burst when I got the signal that I had scratched. When I landed my right wing dipped just slightly touching my right tire just barely ahead of the line.
My combined score for that set would have been around 90' which still would have been 3rd place in my class although it would have moved me from 5th overall to 3rd overall. A lot of people realized and appreciated the fact that I had flown my SS all the way from Idaho and that it wasn't made just for extreme take-off and landing but was a good all around airplane.
From all the comments I heard up there I would say that we got some really good exposure. I got to be friends with Frank and Kris Knapp, the Breedens and Paul Claus who even invited us to stay over at his place Sunday night. He owns the Ultima Thulie Lodge on the Chittna River. We took him up on the offer. He is probably the best known and most respected bush pilot in Alaska and it is a big deal to me to be friends with him. Very likable good natured guy.
Another fun thing was going and landing a bunch of gravel bars in the river just out of Valdez with Bob Breeden and his friend in their cubs. Our planes were all light before loading 'em up for the trip home. He also invited me to his place south of Anchorage but it was just too out of the way and we needed to get headed home.
Other than getting a terrible motion and exhaust fume headache a couple of the days, it was an awesome trip and experience that I will always remember. There is so much more I could say but this just took a full hour to write this. It's a good thing that I fly much better than I type.
by av8rps » Wed May 14, 2014 7:09 pm 
