Winners:
Top Gun: Rex Krauklis

Short Take Off:
1st place: Rex & Bryan Krauklis ( 750 ft.)
2nd place: Mark & Paula Loetscher ( 800 ft.)
3rd place: Brian & Cathy Gochnauer ( 900 ft.)

Bottle Drop:
1st place:  Brian Oetting and Shay Pontsler - 10 ft 8 in from bulls eye.
2nd place: Dennis Raddant & Dale Moorehead - 19 ft 3 in from bulls eye.
3rd place:  Rex & Bryan Krauklis  - 22 ft 6 in from bulls eye.

Landing Style and Grace:
1st place: Toshi Adair ( 3 good landings,  7.54 average score )
2nd place: Geoff & Lauren LaGioia ( 2 good landings, 7.87 average score )

There were three contests in 2003. We began with a short take off contest. Each pilot guessed how much runway he or she would need to get airborne. Pilots only received credit if able to get airborne and stay there in the target distance.  The pilot who guessed the shortest distance and was able to achieve it won. The maximum allowed distance was 900 feet, which could be reduced by the confident in 50 foot increments. What made the short takeoff especially challenging was that each pilot had to have a package delivery specialist on board, as that contest was performed during the same sequence. The result was truly exciting to watch with an aircraft carrier flight deck atmosphere.

The results: Rex and Bryan Krauklis handily won, getting airborne (and more importantly, staying there!) in less than 750 feet.  The POH minimum is just 900 feet. Rex’s accomplishment was obtained purely by pilot finesse, N11381 has the stock 100 HP engine, with no STOL kit or other aftermarket enhancements, and most impressive of all, with a mild tailwind!

To improve the odds this year, we reduced the complexity by having just one target X and tripling it’s size from 16 to 49 square feet. Each pilot / package delivery specialist team got three runs at the target.  The results were surprisingly good. Of the total 33 package drops, 6 packages were close, with 3 inside  the target area. 

Airboss Mayotte suggested during the briefing that a good technique on the first pass would be to fly the centerline of the runway and gauge the effect of the crosswind based on the results. Most pilots were quite accurate in flying the runway centerline, but as it turned out, the winds had a minimal effect on package trajectory. Most packages from the first pass fell right onto the runway, some of them pretty close to the centerline.

After that first pass, techniques varied widely. Assistant Airboss Tom Mayotte was kept busy chasing packages all over tarnation in his golf cart. Three of the packages were deemed unrecoverable when they dropped into the adjacent bean field. Its obvious that being able to spot the bottles during the drop is crucial to making corrections on the next pass. Future contestants may benefit from some form of increasing package visibility. 

Brian Oetting and Shay Pontsler in N1016 made the most accurate delivery, with a package that landed just 10 feet 8 inches from target center. Second place went to Dale Morehead and Dennis Raddant in N2802, at 19 foot 3 inches.  Takeoff contest winners Rex and Bryan Krauklis  placed a near third at 22 feet 6 inches.

In spite of the challenging conditions, there were several excellent practice target landings, so we were surprised that only five pilots chose to tackle the official contest after lunch. To be fair, the quartering tail wind had picked up considerably.  Judging the landings was especially stringent. 15 judges each evaluated the landings for style and grace on a scale of 1-10. Pilots that missed the target zone received a zero for that attempt. The total score for all three landings was combined and averaged for the final score. Using this system, a perfect score would be 30 points, or 3 landings at a perfect 10 score each.

Landing Contest Pilots:

Flying the afternoon contest landings can only be described as “Hairy”. The five pilots participating earned our praise for tackling a tough job under challenging conditions. The target was small, and the quartering tailwind brisk!

In spite of the challenging conditions, all of the landings were quite good, some were outstanding. The most difficult task was getting the airplane to touch down inside the target area. Several of the approaches looked good right up till the very last second, but then the airplane would float over the target area without touching down. Judges and spectators regularly held their collective breath, expecting a scoring run, only to see the contestant scratch by mere feet or inches. Loud Awwwww’s were frequent from the viewing area.

In the end two contestants prevailed, with a “to the wire” horse race nail biter photo finish. Despite gallant efforts, all three of the other pilots missed the target area on all three attempts.

Both  Toshi and Geoff nailed each of their first two landings with near perfect scores. It was obvious that landing #3 was the tie breaker. On the third landing Toshi made it 3 for 3. The judges were on pins and needles as Geoff made his competing approach for the gold. 

If Geoff made it inside the target area, we’d have to select the winner by average score, a la Olympic Figure Skating …. Here he comes….he’s gonna make it...come on Geoff!  Awwwww! Missed it by Inches!

Toshi Adair was the clear winner, having made all three landings in the target area and achieving average scores of 7.8, 7.8, and 6.8. It was a superb display of piloting skill, you had to be there to see it!