Soft-field landing in C172

Ok, makes sense. I've landed on some extremely sluschy surfaces back in
sweden in the pawnee and at one point we were taking off (2100' runway)
and half way on the takeoff roll I hit a massive pool of water that
wasn't visible in the grass. Lost me 20 kts of airspeed easily.
Fortunately I braked and the glider disconnected and we were fine.
After that I did tell them that we'd had enough for the day though, and
my poor plane was covered in grass and mud.

Glider pilots can be very persistent when they've taken the time to
come out and assemble their planes :-)

On 2004-03-25 08:14:15 -0500, "Maule Driver"
said:

I live on a grass/dirt 3300 foot strip. Not short but after rain can be
very soft. I've learned that 'soft' covers a lot of territory. Slippery
grass, pull the wheels off mud and a bunch of variations in between.

I think the 'keeping a little power-on" during the flare has value in
certain (a lot of?) aircraft. When I was working out in a 60's Mooney, it
was clear that without power, a minimum speed landing would result in
immediate nose wheel contact unless a little power was held. That's a bad
thing in mud. Among other things it may be the last thing you see clearly
until the rags come out.

A little power seems to be a good thing in my tailwheel Maule. When doing
minimum speed stuff, it is well known that the Maule will run out of
elevator authority (and get into a high descent rate condition if high).
The fix is a little power. When I'm landing in the mud, I want go be able
to plant that tailwheel with full back elevator in order to avoid a mud
encounter followed by any nosing over, and a little power seems to help keep
some positive elevator authority. But that's just my sense of things.
Ironically, a little power and down elevator is the key to keeping the
tailwheel unstuck at taxi speeds but (see nose over).

Power and elevator control (and flaps) is the key to soft field *operations*
including taxi, TO and Landing. A C172 may be fine with a power-off touch
down but if you do a beautiful minimum speed full stall landing, you still
have options but flying may not be one of them. Clearly some other aircraft
require carrying a little power during such landings which makes the
technique a valuable one to learn and be proficient at.

I'm not a CFI.
"Magnus" wrote in message
...
Just curious how you guys perform this maneuver. From what I've been
taught you should flare with a little power still in to soften the
touchdown, and then keep rolling to avoid digging yourself into the
runway surface.

I just think that it should be possible to land anyway, without any
power like you normally land. Just keep the plane airborne as long as
possible and keep the nosewheel up as long as you can. Keeping power in
just eats up a lot of runway it seems.

I mean, how often do you happen to find a rough and long field.
Ususally if a soft-field landing is required, it's a pretty short field
too out in the bush somewhere.

Approach like a short-field and flare as long as possible to soften the
touchdown would be my way of doing it.