LadiesLoveTaildraggers

Elise Roche is at it again; having a great time flying a 1955 Super Cub in Austria! Thanks Elise for posting some pictures that we can all envy – flying a beautiful taildragger on a gorgeous day in the Alps. Hope my sidekick (Google Translate) and I got it right!

Elise Roche ♥ at Fliegerhorst Fiala Fernbrugg Aigen

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Simply great;-) At remote airfield in Austria

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Flying our beautiful Piper Super Cub (year of manufacture 1955) in the Austrian Alps

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Another photo of our 1955 Super Cub

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Elise Roche wake-up call for the dad on Sunday;-) - with Ludwig Bretterebner

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According to the weather report today it is rainy and unstable! The weather report was completely wrong.

Bobbie Breeden & custom Super Cub

Here’s an incredible story from the “Alaska Dispatch News” you may not have heard. This video is of 17 year old student pilot, Bobbie Breeden, preparing for the 2011 Short Takeoff and Landing competition at the Valdez, Alaska Fly-in. He’s flying a modified Super Cub with 210 hp and a light weight composite propeller. Watch it because the story begins here.

So what happens next? Bobby came in 4th place overall in the competition with a total distance of 101 feet – including the competition’s shortest takeoff distance of 36 feet. A pretty amazing feat for a 17 year old student pilot from Virginia. But the story continues. The competition was in April 2011 and along came July 2011 and Bob & son Bobbie are on a several week flying trip around Alaska. They’re off flying the Wrangell Mountains having a great adventure and according to Bob, “discovering and landing new landing zones all day, mostly on glacier tops on exposed ice, below the snow level — which was still around 5,000 feet on the glacier top at this early date in July.”

“At the end of the day, we landed in a wide river valley about two miles above where a glacier collided with a mountain wall, with the river cutting in between. We walked down to this point, safely along the mountain and well away from the glacier, to where a big blue glacier face stood opposite the mountain, and explored this spot for almost an hour, and took a lot of pictures. There seemed to be no threat, and even a comforting thought that any falling ice would easily be swept away by the swift river.”

“There was a small gravel bar on our side of the river, across from the glacier — and we decided that we would bring the plane into the gravel bar for a photo.”

“Once there with the plane, we walked around and took some photos, but within a minute of arriving, we heard some crackling in the ice. Before we could get in the plane to depart, a piece came down and instantly displaced the river beneath it, creating a 3 to 5-second blast of sand and water, comparable to an explosion. It shot across the river at us. I dropped my camera while instinctively putting my hands over my face and turning my back to the spray and blast, which swept me up the sand and gravel of the river bank. The plane slid sideways 30 feet, and was crushed up against a stationary block of ice, knocking the gear off and smashing one wing and the tail. The fuselage was twisted and the fabric open. The water sluiced back into the river and all was quiet, less than 15 seconds after it started. We were soaked to the skin.”

“We located each other and the greatest dread passed as I realized that Bobby was OK. We gathered our clothes bag, food, tent, sleeping bags, SPOT transmitter and satellite phone from the baggage area and got to safer, higher ground. We found a place in the sun but behind a boulder to break the breeze. We got out of our wet clothes into dry. After collecting ourselves, and perhaps 30 minutes after the event, we tried calling Donna Claus at Ultima Thule Lodge. Not reaching the Lodge right away, we also tried Dave Calkins to let someone know in Anchorage that we would need to be picked up. Soon after talking with Dave, we reached Donna, and a couple of hours later Loni Habersetzer, whom we had talked with earlier in the day, came and picked us up.”

“The photos here were taken after the initial event. What you see here is much different from the day of the incident. As new ice continuously fell, the river bed changed as well. The original gravel bar was strewn with large ice blocks. As the glacier continued to calve, large blasts of water continued to alter the riverbed and batter the plane. You can see why the plane could not be retrieved once the glacier became unstable.”

“10 days later, the plane had been moved 100 yards by continuous blasts of water from the calving glacier. The entire glacier had advanced far enough that when large pieces tipped over, they landed directly on the plane.
I got word from my friend who flew over the site on Aug. 7, more than a month after the incident, and he said that the terrain has changed so much that it was entirely unrecognizable from what it looked like the day the incident occurred. The glacier has advanced and covered the original site. There is no trace remaining of the plane.”

Entire article at http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/super-cub-plane-crushed-alaska-glacier?page=0,1

Here’s a GREAT video everybody….Bush flying near Talkeetna, Alaska.
Created by Wayne Mushrush and Vanessa Bauman. I haven’t been able to find contact info on Vanessa so all you gals from Alaska, if you know her, send her our way. Not sure if she’s flying that Super Cub or not but she’s out there doing it and making some great videos!
Music: “Joe Bann” by Fernando Apodaca.

Karen Croskell is based at CO15, Kelly Air Park, Elbert, Colorado.

Karen Croskell

“As a retired (early @ 52) airline pilot, 19 years @ USAirways I THOUGHT I knew how to fly but it wasn’t until we bought our first plane, a Piper Clipper (1991) that I REALLY learned how to fly! We have airplanes off & on (always TW!) since then and gliders. My husband & I met flying gliders. We had a Steen Skybolt for a while and we have had 2 Super Cubs. The Super Cub is our favorite!

(From Karen) Our 2010 Super Cub Flight to Oshkosh…..

(Hubby) Trey flew the first leg in our 1956 Super Cub. We were headed for the big airshow “Oshkosh” in Wisconsin once again. In 2009 we took Chapman and his good friend Bryce and it is becoming a yearly event with more boys every year. We take turns flying and driving the support van with all the camping gear. Our Cub barely has room for a toothbrush!

Trey had the Cub all fueled up for Karen and Jeff’s leg. Jeff wanted to wait in the Cub for Karen but her “mom” instinct kicked in and she made everyone go to the van for a snack. Moments later we heard the explosion, ran around the corner to see our Cub engulfed in flames. A turbine Thrush (cropduster) took a short cut across the parking ramp. Never saw our little Cub over that big long nose. Both aircraft were a total loss, the cropduster pilot survived with burns.

From the McCook Daily Gazette, July 22, 2010

The cropduster came up from the right rear, the only door, we never would have seen it coming. His propeller came to rest in my seat.

After 6 years I’m now coming out of retirement to be a contract CFI for the USAF. We live @ Kelly Airpark, you are all welcome to fly in to visit!

Karen Croskell

Take a look at Karen’s YouTube video. This is one accomplished & motivated lady!

Happy Valentine’s Day everybody. There’s one lucky girl out there that’s got a lot to smile about today; heck she’ll be smiling for years to come. Check it out – it’s even Valentine’s red. I am sooooo jealous! But the truth is, she really is a sweetheart herself and deserves to get what any good taildraggin’ girl would want – a Super Cub! From all the ladies of LadiesLoveTaildraggers, congratulations Donna!

“My sweet husband of 26years finally figured out what it takes to make a girl happy. Check out my valentines day gift, a 150hp Supercub. This may even have to count towards my birthday in July. No wait, I need some new bush wheels so now he can buy me goodies for the Cub on every special occasion.”

“I am one blessed girl. See y’all at the flyins.”

Donna

Sue Tholen is based at KSFM, Sanford Regional Airport, Sanford, Maine.

New pictures from Sue Tholen! …. Actually, they’re not new at all and I owe Sue an apology. She sent me these 2 great Super Cub pictures late last summer and they got buried in my emails.  I’m sorry Sue. This just proves it – I need a new picture filing system!!

Sue Tholen & Super Cub

Sue has CFI and CFII, Airplane Single Engine Land & Sea ratings.

Posted 4/14/11 …………………….

“I was amazed to find your website – not many women pilots around, much less taildragger pilots.  I only got into it after our flight school owner got a Citabria.  I was a brand new CFI and didn’t want to be left out of the fun of the new airplane, so I made myself try it out.”

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“Took me a while to master it – it really does make you a better pilot and doesn’t let you get away with bad habits or lazy feet — but I quickly fell in love with the airplane and tailwheel flying in general. Now I’m on a grass strip hunt.  Maine’s pretty good in that regard…..”

Sue is a flight instructor at Southern Maine Aviation.

Brenda Kroening is based at KRST, Rochester Intl., Minnesota & KRNH, New Richmond Regional Airport, Wisconsin.

Brenda Kroening

Hello everyone! I’m a newbie TW aviator and recently bought a 1956 Super Cub, which I have LOVED flying!

"Bonding with my Super Cub"

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Sandy Krier, Catherine  Cavagnaro and I are best friends in the Cessna 150-152 Club….. J All lady taildraggers!

Brenda Kroening , Catherine Cavagnaro and Sandy Krier

I have met a few LLT members and look forward to meeting many more of you.

Cheers,

Brenda Kroening

Carolyn Thorne is based at S43, Harvey Field Airport and KAWO, Arlington Municipal Airport, Arlington, Washington.

Tardis in Talkeetna

I’m in Washington getting tailwheel training and a float rating.

Ready for winter

Own a PA-18 stored in Wasilla for the winter.. can’t wait to fly this coming summer!

Anchorage

The supercub is my baby!

Grumpy Alaskans

I was getting lessons in the Challenger at Pleasant valley airstrip in AZ last year.

Arizona flying Skwirrel

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Arizona flying

We had an unbelievably beautiful, blue sky day to fly at the E TN Super Club Flyin on Friday.  I don’t know what the official airplane count finally turned out to be but I heard the number “65″ thrown about a couple of times. It was mostly Super Cubs and Super Cub derivatives (Cubcrafters, Legend, Dakota….), plenty of the granddaddy of all Cubs, the J3s, and then the Cub wannabes, Maules, Citabrias, Scouts, & Rans. And if that doesn’t do it for you, we had a Zenith 701, a Murphy Rebel, a Pitts, a 65 hp Taylorcraft with bush tires & seems like maybe even a rouge RV or two.

Patty Sizemore, Anne Wright, Judy Birchler & Yvette Tracy

Of course, you know this event was all about the boys and their toys but there were enough of us gals around to have more than our share of fun too.

The Yellow Line up

The Friday lunch flyout turned out to be at a beautiful strip owned by Sam Kite and he had plenty of rolling hills for all the taildraggers to taxi, park and play around on. I never did hear if this was prearranged or just happenstance but everybody started lining up by color.

It was great for me because it makes for beautiful pictures.

Not to be outdone, the red & whites got in the act.

The red & white line up

Many of us were still hanging around Kite Field when a group led by Diana Votaw taxied out and flew off to do their own thing.  A couple hours later I was out flying my Rans in the area when I heard them on 123.0 returning to Elizabethton “flight of 8 downwind for 24″. OMG, cracked me up – a gaggle of 8 coming in!! I heard one guy transmit “this is the longest downwind I’ve ever made in my life!”. I decided to give them plenty of time before I headed back!

Flight of 8 anyone?!

If you’re wondering how the whole “fly-out” thing for a group of 65 +/- planes comes together I can tell you this. Friday and Saturday morning there was a pilot’s briefing where the flyouts for the day were announced and GPS identifier and coordinates were passed out. Steve Lewis, who was hosting the fly-in, announced the slower planes would launch first and the faster would wait 30 minutes and follow. It would be single file, keep adequate spacing, pass on the right if you must, and if you’re too fast, turn out and get behind.

Ed Doyle & me

After the Friday pilot’s briefing I bumped into Ed Doyle who invited me to ride along with him on the day’s flyout. Now mind you, I’ve already done the briefing and was nearly ready to hop in the Rans so I told him “No, I’m good, I’ve got a ride”.  I don’t think it was a full 60 seconds later that I was kicking myself for missing the chance to fly with the famous Ed Doyle, winner of the 2011 Valdez, Alaska STOL contest in the wide-open alternate bush plane category. His total  takeoff and landing distance when he won was 78 feet; 43 feet for the takeoff and 35 feet for the landing. Incredible. Soooo, I went running back to Ed saying something like, “Please let me go! What was I thinking? Of course I want to ride along with you!!” Lucky for me he let me go.

Ed giving me the low-down while we're flying the line to lunch!

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Great day to fly

Somehow I managed to get not one, but two, great rides in on Friday. Larry, who has a strip just next to Sam Kite’s, is a Rans S7s owner, heard I had one too and offered me a ride around the area in his.

Larry's was a beauty

How lucky can a person get in one day? I flew his from the back a little and thought the controls were pretty close to what I’m used to. I got a few flying tips, saw some local strips and we even tried to land at Larry’s short grass strip till we broke off when a 4 wheeler zipped across it. No problem, we’re flexible and we had to get back to Kite Field anyway.

It's early fall in Tennessee but I have to tell you, the best fall colors weren't coming from the trees, they were coming from the airplanes!