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Pilot Briefing News

Pilot Briefing September 2019
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Events

STOL comes to Reno

Air Races will host short takeoff and landing contest

The sensation that is STOL Drag will now be a part of the 2019 Stihl National Championship Air Races and Air Show, which takes place September 11 through 15 in Reno, Nevada. Brought to the aviation world by the Flying Cowboys, a group of friends who originated STOL Drag at the High Sierra Fly-In, held each year in October on a dry lake bed in Nevada, the race pits backcountry bush airplanes competing to see who can take off from a dead stop, fly the straightaway low and fast to full stop, turn, and fly back the fastest.

The famous Reno air races will now include STOL Drag on a 2,000-foot-long track at Reno/Stead Airport, meaning the race will be a 4,000-foot course. The combination of drag racing and aviation is a brainchild of Kevin Quinn, organizer of the High Sierra Fly-In. He says the wing-to-wing competition will be “like nothing Reno has seen before.”

Performers at Reno include the Thunderbirds, Rob Holland, World War II aircraft from the Commemorative Air Force, and an F/A–18 Legacy Flight. See “Flying Ridiculously Fast,” p. 50, for a closer look at one Reno racer.

airrace.org

Headlines that affect you

Recent news from the aviation world

Tuskegee airman has died
Robert J. Friend, a member of the Tuskegee Airmen who flew 142 World War II combat missions and later directed a secret government program to investigate unidentified aerial phenomena, died June 19 in Long Beach, California, at age 99. Friend, who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, flew North American P–51 Mustang and Republic P–47 Thunderbolt fighters in Europe with the Tuskegee Airmen’s 322nd Fighter Group.

Young aviators fly-in delivers fun, fellowship, flying
The food, fun, flying, and fellowship were amped up for an estimated 500 young and “young at heart” aviators who attended the Young Aviators Fly-In at Triple Tree Aerodrome June 21 to 23. The event was created by young pilots as part of aviation’s youth movement. The second annual fly-in was co-founded by Cayla McLeod, a self-described “taildragger girl” and private pilot from Georgia, and commercial pilot Ryan Hunt.

Aviation Adventures awarded AOPA Presidential Citation
A Virginia flight school that has maintained a presence as one of the top aviation learning environments in the United States was recognized with an AOPA Presidential Citation. “It was entirely unexpected, but enormously appreciated,” wrote an exuberant Bob Hepp, the founder of Aviation Adventures, the mid-Atlantic flight school that is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. “I have a very deep respect for the significance of the AOPA Presidential Citation. To be counted in the ranks of previous recipients is very humbling,” he wrote to AOPA President Mark Baker.

aopa.org

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