STOL

The 2019 Stihl National Championship Air Races are in the books after yet another exciting week of heart-pumping battles around the pylons, Thunderbird performances and a touch of aerobatics under mostly perfect flying conditions. This year’s races concluded with a brand-new class emerging out of the STOL Drag Demonstration, the first class to be added […]

.embed-container { position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%; } .embed-container iframe, .embed-container object, .embed-container embed { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; } The stunning super STOL favorite, Draco, was totaled in a takeoff accident this week as owner Mike Patey attempted to leave Reno-Stead after the […]

The Stihl National Championship Air Races are set to take off next week, from September 11 through 15, at the Reno-Stead Airport west of Reno, Nevada. The annual event features performances and displays that promise to thrill adults and kids alike. For the first time this year, NCAR is testing out a STOL Drag category. […]

There is a growing population of backcountry flying enthusiasts breathing life into the taildragger/short takeoff and landing (STOL) world with the popularity of one-offs like the turbopowered extreme STOL Draco. To satisfy the need for pilots to play and show the proficiency on challenging short fields, a new STOL competition is emerging outside Minneapolis. The […]

The Chipper SS, Chipper Aero’s newest kitplane for the amateur-built market arrives at Sun n’ Fun late Tuesday from Wichita, in time to strut its short takeoff and landing (STOL) stuff for the crowds through the weekend. Belite Aircraft company president James Wiebe said, “We continued to hear the call for a Part 103 (ultralight) […]

Faradair, a startup aircraft maker based in the UK, launched an 18-seat hybrid-propulsion aircraft it hopes to fly by 2022 and introduce to the market by 2025. Revealed at the Revolution.Aero Europe 2019 show in London, the so-called Bio Electric Hybrid Aircraft is being developed for passenger operations as well as cargo roles. The concept […]

Canard airplanes were the rage in the 1970s. The VariEze took the homebuilding world — which Jim Bede’s BD-5 had recently taken by storm — by storm. Storms were frequent those days; it was also in the 1970s that T-tails took general aviation by storm and popped up in a lot of places they had […]

The factory-built Zenith CH 750 will be returning to the market later this spring after Zenair inked an agreement with M-Squared Aircraft in Mobile, Alabama, to resume production of the ready-to-fly STOL aircraft. The STOL CH 750 was originally offered as a factory-built S-LSA a number of years ago. Now it’s back, and completion of […]

The Piper Super Cub was a popular inspiration for aircraft both certified and kit-built. Check out these modern look-alikes and how they compare to the classic. [Historical pricing included in this update from 2015 and preserved for the record.]