Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/27/pilot-takes-off-in-2-5-feet-lands-in-16-5.html
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There a bunch of videos on the YouTubes of bush pilots landing on sandbars.
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Yeah, in Alaska those bush pilots can land in the craziest places. Take off almost moving backwards off of a windy hill, it seems.
ETA nice number on the plane 
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Modern prop planes are basically front-mounted helicopters. Given that a helicopter can do it in 0 feet, in not sure what the constraints are…
Think of all the money we could save on airfields if all takeoffs and landings were done this way. Maybe in the Boeing 737 MAX, which has a mind of it’s own anyway.
Orientation of propeller blade tips relative to terrain?
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Just read through it on XKCD and still don’t understand how it’s a debate. Except internet. Which is the point, I guess?
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Just what you want for those insanely wide but only 20’ long runways.
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Mythbusters did a great segment on it
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And not so modern as well, the Fieseler Storch was a very similar looking aircraft, similar enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if this plane hasn’t drawn influences from the Storch, introduced in 1937.
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It’s like trying to debate people who think that stepping on the brakes in a stationary car will make it go backwards. Theres no point and you just become dumber arguing.
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That’s exactly why Randall Munroe should tell everyone that thrust and wings create lift and therefore the wheels are irrelevant. It would totally settle the matter like Steve Wilhite did over the pronunciation of .gif.
/s(igh)
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Kevin Quinn has a global stole competition going on
Read that several times before it clicked that he meant stol competition.
Had enough of electionspeak.
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STOL stunts like this are the kind of thing you see a lot of in RC aircraft, because modern RC engines have given them insane power to weight ratios. With effectively infinite power, you can make a plane do almost anything. I feel like this guy’s stunt plane is getting into the same territory, really. It appears to be a decorative shell with a metric fuckton of power bolted to the front. I heartily approve. 
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The Storch is a relatively enormous and heavy aircraft. The aircraft in the video is a much smaller and simpler Just Highlander home-built. The resemblance between the two is fairly superficial. Most STOL aeroplanes follow this layout.
Interestingly though, a lot of the high-lift devices found on the Storch wing can also be seen on the Highlander wing.
The leading edge of the wing features a Slat (the black part) and Slot (the gap) which tends to make the airflow stick to the top surface of the wing, thus delaying stall. And the flaps (the inboard, trailing edge drooping part in the image below) and the Ailerons (the outboard trailing edge) run the full width of the wings). The flaps are deployed to temporarily increase the lift of the wing at the expense of additional drag.
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Cos it’s a Highlander an’ all…
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