In article
,
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:

On Jun 26, 8:54*pm, Orval Fairbairn
wrote:
In article ,
*Larry Dighera wrote:

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:06:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"
wrote in
:

How often do you get to land or take off from something other than a
paved runway?

Not very often.

Does this count?
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_...oy_CA_02_w.jpg
http://members.tripod.com/airfields_...s_CA_SanBernar...
tm#amboy

I used to fly my Johnson Rocket out of Frazier Lake, which is the only
irrigated sod airport in California. During the winter it got too soggy
and we used the parallel (paved) 30 ft wide taxiway. That got really
sporting with a 90 deg crosswind!

The best sod I have ever flown into is Leeward Air Ranch, in FL --
smooth as a putting green! I landed there and didn't know I had touched
down until the plane started decelerating on its own.

The hairiest was at Eustis, FL, when I landed there a couple of days
after some heavy rains. The grass was about 6 in. high. Touchdown
deceleration was FAST! It took a fair amount of power to taxi.

I wasn't sure we could take off, but decided to use full flaps to
produce max lift. I figured that, if I could rotate, it would fly; if
not, we had 3000 ft to play with. *I must have left ruts on the
threshold, but got rotated and flew out.

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Ummm ... not sure what you were flying but seems to me, FULL FLAPS is
in the drag flap area and not maximum lift. I can think of many
aircraft that state max flap for takeoff at 10 deg or whatever "one
notch" equates to. Now if you "rotate" at less than performance speed,
you're going to be in ground effect and perhaps get airborne but when
you get out of ground effect with that same low speed, you're going to
settle back to the runway with a high vertical velocity and no amount
of power will keep you from getting an enema from the main gear! Look
at airshow crashes when jet aircraft hit the runway trying to stop
that sink rate and they even have afterburner to help them out.
Takes some hard decisions to tell your PAX "we have to wait for better
conditions to get out of this mess I got us into."
Don't let that macho **** get you into a corner you can't get out of.
Trust me, it ain't worth it just to try to prove you are the ace of
the base. Don't let your rep become the "Ass of the base" .....?
Cheers
Ol S&B

I used full flaps, as I indicated, to create max lift, as the field was
very soggy, and I have a 5.00X4 nosewheel and 6.00X6 mains, on a 2550#
plane with 18#/ft2 wing loading. The Rocket will fly (and climb) with 45
deg barndoor split flaps.

Once rotated and airborne, I was able to start flaps and gear up, but
the problem at hand was to break free of the soggy runway.

BTW -- my pax was test pilot for the Lunar Module training vehicle. He
voiced no objections, as we had plenty of start/stop distance.

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