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#21
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Unpaved Landing areas
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_...ernardino_SE.h 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. -- Remove _'s from email address to talk to me. |
#22
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Unpaved Landing areas
On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:54:13 -0400, Orval Fairbairn
wrote in : I used to fly my Johnson Rocket out of Frazier Lake, which is the only irrigated sod airport in California. [Interesting stories snipped] Did you ever land at that old crushed rock strip that used to be at the north end of the Salton Sea? The one with the big hole at the approach end, and a white line just beyond the hole as a threshold marker. Or how about another gravel field, Sun Hill Ranch Airport near Adelanto: http://www.airnav.com/airport/CA70 ? |
#23
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Unpaved Landing areas
Orval Fairbairn wrote in
news 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_..._CA_SanBernard ino_SE.h 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. Orval - Had Columbia (O22) completed their re-sodding of 11/29 before you left the Bay area? After they finished, it was just like your description of Leeward Air Ranch. -- Marty Shapiro Silicon Rallye Inc. (remove SPAMNOT to email me) |
#24
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Unpaved Landing areas
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. -- Remove _'s *from email address to talk to me. 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 |
#25
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Unpaved Landing areas
On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:06:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"
wrote: How often do you get to land or take off from something other than a paved runway? The current books don't give it much thought and I suspect because the writers are so new at this aviation thing, they have little or no experience on anything but paved runways. Part of the reason for this post was the resistance to more than a few to not land on a great 2000' grass strip that has an Interstate on one end, and trees on the other. I have no idea why they are afraid to land on this strip. There are at least three grass strips of 2000' length in this area and some that are longer (one is about 4000'). What has your experience been? I have no idea how much time I have operating off strips of 1200' or less, grass, gravel, sand, etc and no problems. Must be at least thousands of them, both in terms of take off and landings as well as hours. Ol S&B there is nothing quite so sweet as operating a Tailwind from a grass green runway 100 metres shorter than the manual says you can. (which I do all the time) best story re unmade strips is mike flying a tosser as pax in a Cessna 172. they were doing a cross country up north. mike looks out the window and says to himself 'bugger it that'll do' which gets picked up over the intercom. mike pulls off the throttle, applies heat and lowers landing stages of flaps and wheels it around for an approach to ....nothing. tosser wannabe works himself up into an appoplexic lather at the prospect of there being no runway ahead, just ...nothing. mike pops it in with out any trouble and shuts down to a tosser with eyes like saucers. 'you cant do that!' 'oh dont worry you dont have to ...back in a mo' ' mike walks to the end of the wing and has a ****. back in the aircraft the tosser gets himself all worked up at the prospect of a takeoff ...on nothing. later mike tells us of all the commotion. it was a perfectly level grassy area as a flat as a billiard table ...and I needed a ****. I would suggest that students are taken for a landing in an aluminium aircraft on a gravel runway. the din can take you by surprise. but other than that these people are so limited by their fears and lack of real experience that they are a worry. totally needless apprehension. Stealth Pilot |
#26
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Unpaved Landing areas
In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote: On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:54:13 -0400, Orval Fairbairn wrote in : I used to fly my Johnson Rocket out of Frazier Lake, which is the only irrigated sod airport in California. [Interesting stories snipped] Did you ever land at that old crushed rock strip that used to be at the north end of the Salton Sea? The one with the big hole at the approach end, and a white line just beyond the hole as a threshold marker. Or how about another gravel field, Sun Hill Ranch Airport near Adelanto: http://www.airnav.com/airport/CA70 ? No -- Idid not do much flying in that area. I did land at Giant Rock one time and talked to one of the saucer people, though. -- Remove _'s from email address to talk to me. |
#27
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Unpaved Landing areas
In article ,
Marty Shapiro wrote: Orval Fairbairn wrote in news 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_..._CA_SanBernard ino_SE.h 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. Orval - Had Columbia (O22) completed their re-sodding of 11/29 before you left the Bay area? After they finished, it was just like your description of Leeward Air Ranch. I never landed on 11.29 at Columbia -- I always used the paved runway. There used to be an "air snake" there that would grab the unwary. -- Remove _'s from email address to talk to me. |
#28
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Unpaved Landing areas
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. -- Remove _'s *from email address to talk to me. 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. -- Remove _'s from email address to talk to me. |
#29
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Unpaved Landing areas
On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 14:12:24 -0400, Orval Fairbairn
wrote in : I did land at Giant Rock one time and talked to one of the saucer people, though. I over flew Giant Rock once in the late '90s, but thought better of landing in the deep sand. I'd want to walk the "strip" before intentionally landing there. There's lots of "saucer people" out in the desert: http://www.lucernevalley.net/giantrock/ http://www.labyrinthina.com/rock.htm http://www.integratron.com/2History/History.html http://www.elfis.net/rnr/rnrx/giantrock.htm http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/hopisplit.htm Good recent and historic Giant Rock photos he http://havewebsiteswilltravel.com/co...Airport12.html http://www.mbhs.net/more_photos.htm I once did a low pass at the unpaved WWII USAAF tactical airstrip at Essex, CA (scroll down): http://members.tripod.com/airfields_....htm#campessex The weeds were too high for the PA28-235 however. |
#30
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Unpaved Landing areas
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in
: Ummm ... not sure what you were flying but seems to me, FULL FLAPS is in the drag flap area and not maximum lift. Oh, you'll get more lift, but as you say it's the cost in drag that usually makes this not such a good idea. HoweverI got stuck in snow in a 150 when I was a student and my instructor came to the airport I was stuck at and took off in well over 6 inches of fluff using 30 degrees to get off. Gets you out of the muck faster but at the expense of climbe performance. I can think of many aircraft that state max flap for takeoff at 10 deg or whatever "one notch" equates to. Well, it depends on what you're loking for and how much runway and gradient you have to spare. Yo'll get an aiplane off the ground more quickly, generally speaking, at a higher flap setting, but it will cost you in climb. Also, it's not bad technique to get airborne a little on the slow side in ground effect on a soft field as long as you dont try to climb out of it at the same speed you came off the ground. Best technique for performance is to get the attitude right to allow the airplane to come off as early as it can solidly do so and then to rotate to your climb attitude as smoothly as you can at such a rotation speed to ensure you reach climb attitude and your climb speed simultaneously. This ensures you have close to the optimum alpha at all times as you accelerate in and then climb out of ground effect. Bertie |
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