Over the weekend the NW Super Cub Fly-In was held here at the airport in Concrete. It was the first time they have held the event here and it was a lot of fun. There were around 15 airplanes that flew in on Friday and spent the night camping on the field.

Saturday morning a group of the bush wheel equipped planes headed out on the Skagit River and found some off airport places to practice their STOL skills. By lunch time the weather had cleared up and airplanes kept arriving all afternoon.

The take-off and landing competition was held on the grass runway parallel to the main runway here at 3W5. The organizers set up a orange stripe about a third of the way down the runway to give them plenty of room to slow down for their ultra short landings and keeping things as safe as possible.

By the time the competition was underway there were around 40 airplanes that had flown in for the event. We had more than a dozen Super Cubs, most with giant bush wheels. There were a handful of Cub Crafters Top Cubs and Sport Cubs as well as the company’s amazing Carbon Cub. A few Aviat Huskies showed up, including one on amphib floats. At the bigger end of the bush plane scale were six Cessna 180s and a 170. There were also quite a few spectators who flew in for the event in a random assortment of airplanes.

Watching the STOL competition was quite amazing. A few of the airplanes were able to get off the ground in under 100 feet and stopping in well under 150 feet. The shortest take off of the day was just 55 feet in a Cub Crafters Sport Cub, a stock version! The overall competition was won by Jason Gerard in his Piper L-21B Super Cub. Painted in Italian livery (it was one of the many L-21s that served in the Italian military), Jason managed a best take off of just 91 feet and a landing of 107 feet!

It was also fun watching some of the competitors in the “light touring” category. There was a 150 pilot and a 172 pilot both showing off their STOL skills in the airplanes most of us are familiar with. Results from the event can be seen here near the bottom of the page.

We have a bunch of video as well, should get those on the computer in the next few days. in the meantime enjoy a bunch of the photos below from many of the competitors.