On Aug 16, 12:04*pm, Gemini wrote:
On 2010-08-14, brian whatcott wrote:



Doing a couple of patterns this morning, before the heat was
overwhelming, I heard another plane - a C140? in the pattern calling
downwind for a 17 grass landing. This was a first, so I looked at
what was going on: to the right of the hard runway, was fresh mown grass.
And a taildragger, making a pretty landing. So I asked how it was, and
hearing the grass was smooth, decided I should renew acquaintance with
the green. * *And remembered for the first time in twenty years,
the rumble of wheels on grass. Sweet!

Brian W

Excellent! I actually only know grass. In my 15 hrs of training thus
far, I've only landed on asphalt 3x (3 T&G's *in one lesson a
couple of weeks ago). Other than that, I only know soft short field
with obstructions...I rekcon that will make other airports seem
like a breeze, though.

Scott

You'll hear this many times, Scott. When you're operating from long
paved runways, short field with obstruction landing techniques are
fine so long as you plan your touch down point with respect to the
turn off you plan to use, and not the numbers. Landing on the numbers
and driving the airplane 2000 feet to the turn off will make you very
unpopular with people on close final.

Just had another safety related thought. People who are number one and
ready to go at uncontrolled airports look (or are supposed to be
trained to look) for traffic on final, and many will not look for
someone who might be pretty high -- be sure to be in the expected
'slot' where people might be looking, and for that matter, having your
landing light on is a way of calling additional attention to
yourself.

Expect other pilots to be inattentive and to do something stupid, and
once or twice a year you will not be disappointed. Every three or four
years you'll probably see someone doing turns around a tiedown because
they forgot to untie a wing! Turns around a tie down is NOT a student
maneuver, nor is taxi over a chock block.

Now go commit aviation!