The original STOL competition, held annually in Valdez, Alaska, was held last weekend and the shortest landing was accomplished by Jared Garetson, in a tricked-out custom aircraft called the Badlands Traveler. He used just 27 feet of runway to bring the big-tired creation, bristling with lift and control augmenting devices, to a stop. Darren Pleasance is enjoying his recent retirement by attending as many aviation spectacles as he can and we asked him to shoot a video interview with the winner of this year’s contest. Garetson and Pleasance do a walkaround to discover the tech behind this year’s winning entry. Winner of the Heavy Touring class was Lukas Stutzer in a 1972 Helio H-295 with a landing roll of 244 feet.
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Calling it a “tricked-out custom aircraft called the Badlands Traveler” does a bit of disservice to the small flock of other Badlands Travelers out in the wild already (like that BLT that Brady Bergen was competing in alongside at Valdez) and makes it seem like Jared’s is a true one-off design rather than an extreme spec BLT of the Badlands Traveler family… Not every BLT built so far is as crazy and “tricked-out” as some of these amazing airplanes Jared’s team at Garretson Aviation has built (or facilitated build-assist).
Look up Clint Busenitz, owner of Vetterman Exhaust, Inc and designer of the CessnaCub & Badlands Traveler/Vaquero family of iterations (Jared gives Clint a shoutout in the article’s video when talking about the BLT tailwheel design).
Here’s a clip from the competition: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4uGK2uJrlwU