Hi guys, I'm muddymtn from Montana. I recently bought a 182H with the 520 engine and a Horton STOL. The man I bought it from was able to land and takeoff in 600' at a DA of 6000'. I have 900' at 3000' DA but all I have been able to do is scare myself. I am too old and experienced to do something stupid (yeh right) but I can get it stopped in 500' 1 out of 10. I have been practicing at Fort Smith (5U7) which is pavement. My little strip is 3 miles away and grass/dirt. Anyone out there with a 182 that would be comfortable operating out of 900' of grass?

Advice is to practice a lot but...
I think those numbers are quite short.

This is what I would do to have a better margin.
Remove the Horton and install a Sportsman STOL kit.

Your approach speed will be 10 mph slower, more stable.
Your stall speed also about 10 mph slower.
Your landings and take offs a lot shorter.

So at the end , a lot more safety for your operation.

Want even better performance, and more fun? MT prop and VGs.

muddymtn wrote:Hi guys, I'm muddymtn from Montana. I recently bought a 182H with the 520 engine and a Horton STOL. The man I bought it from was able to land and takeoff in 600' at a DA of 6000'.

How many pints of fuel was he carrying?

motoadve wrote:Advice is to practice a lot but...
I think those numbers are quite short.

This is what I would do to have a better margin.
Remove the Horton and install a Sportsman STOL kit.

Your approach speed will be 10 mph slower, more stable.
Your stall speed also about 10 mph slower.
Your landings and take offs a lot shorter.

So at the end , a lot more safety for your operation.

Want even better performance, and more fun? MT prop and VGs.

Great advice...but:

Not to get into a urinating contest re stol kits, and Sportsman is the best, but I believe those numbers are very optimistic.

A hot stick that really wanted to sit on the ragged edge will see a greater difference between a stock/Horton/Sportsman wing, but an average pilot who wants to operate deeper in the envelope under a variety of atmospheric conditions is unlikely to consistently realize 10mph between a stock wing and a Sportsman, much less between a Horton and a Sportsman.

If this is the first plane you've flown with a stol kit it's almost a forgone conclusion you're too fast in the approach. Even with the lowly Horton kit, my airspeed indicator goes completely dead long before I finish slowing down on final.

Are you using flaps on take-off? They make an inordinate difference with the Horton kit.

I gave this advice because I experienced it for myself.
I replaced the Horton in my Cessna 182 with a Sportsman STOL kit.
Also removed flap gap seals.

Went flying and stall speed is 40 mph indicated now , and before used to be 50 mph.
I know maybe more angle of attack in the Sportsman and more innacurate IAS reading.

Also approaches, now are at 45 to 50 mph IAS, used to be 60 mph with the Horton with a feeling of the plane sinking under me.
Maybe removing the flap gap seals helped .

The Horton is almost the same as the post 1973 stock wing.

With the Sportsman I started going to strips I didnt want to attempt before, it gave me more margin and confidence.
I had like 300 hrs and didnt have an instructor to tech me bush flying, just experiment and practicing a lot on my own and took lots of advice from this forums.

I'll second the Sportsman data. I had around 1500 hours behind the Horton before installing the Sportsman, still figuring it out but am seeing close to what Moto is.

Your strip is doable, just keep on with what ur doin and practice a bunch. Your well equipped with ur current setup, Sportsman would help but no need for other mods, just keep burning gas n getting more proficient in ur ride [emoji106]

600 all day long in my 182 but that's at sea level and minimal load.

muddymtn,

I assume neither you nor the former owner have obstacles at the end of your fields. The basic low ground effect takeoff is the most efficient takeoff anywhere, but is essential in very short field operations. Before operating out of short fields you would want to make it your normal technique to not only get practiced up but to make it your most comfortable technique.

It is much the same as the soft field technique already taught at the airport. There are some very critical things that must happen, however. The nose wheel must come just off the surface as soon as possible. Just off. Holding a high pitch attitude will prevent acceleration. Having weight on the nose wheel will prevent acceleration. The mains must come off as soon as possible. Some flap will help, but even with flaps the mains must come off when the airplane will fly in low (six inches to three feet) ground effect. With practice you will find the feel and sound of when it will fly in low ground effect. Not in high ground effect (four to twenty feet.) We want to be off the ground when it will not fly in high ground effect. The airspeed indicator is not going to be very accurate here. Practice and empirical knowledge will be much more helpful. Finally, we want to stay in ground effect as long as possible. If there no obstructions, low ground effect can be maintained well beyond the end of the strip. 900 feet may not accelerate us fast enough to climb and maneuver safely. Stay down and get all the free kinetic energy of pressure airspeed you can get before trying to climb or maneuver.

Weight and density altitude will make all this necessary sometime. Waiting until we need it doesn't get it when we need it.

For a full description of this and other techniques, e-mail me [email protected] and I will return e-mail and attach a copy of "Safe Maneuvering Flight Techniques."

Best regards,

Contact

Those are impressive numbers. My Skylane has a few mild stol mods and a scimitar prop. I can do 5-600 feet takeoffs from asphalt at 5000' consistently with 20 gallons of fuel. Waiting until I'm rolling good to add flap helps-- I think. I can hit the first exit at Driggs runway 3 (6200') 3/4 of the time, and I think it's 600 feet. 900 feet without any obstacles might be OK at that altitude if you were on your game. If there was anything higher than a fence, I don't think I'd count on doing it every time. The other factor would be the light load. Most of us fly 182's because they haul a lot of crap. 5 and 600 foot takeoffs for me requires a barren cabin and landing somewhere for fuel soon. Not a lot of margin left for a fouled plug, mud pocket, or a bad day.

900' strip @ 3000' Density altitude? Are you using flaps?

I would love to introduce you to a buddy of mine, the Flying Hawkes. He is a local Bitterroot Valley Legend, amazing what that guy did with his stock 182 even before he ponk honked it.

If you're in the area, will see if he will run you around our local "Home school course"
900' strip @ 3000' Density altitude, is simply a matter of getting familiar with your airplane and its capabilities.

Richard

I would think it is just getting used to it, a 182 light with 300 horses should not be a problem with a little practice,
Get with the local guy that knows how to do it and follow his advice,
Go up a little bit and get used to flying this thing slow, might be that your just a bit to fast on your approach.
Good Luck, don't pushit and have fun!

Is it the take off or the landing you are worried about? I have found with every plane I have flow its pretty easy with a little practice to land a couple hundred feet shorter then taking off. After my first 40 or so hours I could easily land a stock C-170B in 400ft with a little bit of brake use, taking off was closer to 600 in the same conditions, If I was really trying I could probably knock close 150 foot off the landing and maybe 100 off the take off. practice was the key. from about 16 hours to 40 all I flew off of was a 1300ft strip with a fence and road at on end and a fence at the other. approach from the north wasn't the best as there were some other things to dodge too. I have never flown a 182 but I have flown 170 off short stuff pretty heavy so i dont see why you couldn't do it with around double the power and probably close to the same weights while light.

A) get someone on here, or some one you trust w/ experience to critique/help you.

B) you are probably fighting a fwd cg with that engine. plus you're pretty full on gas ?
assure your fuel load is on the lighter side, and throw something heavy( 50 # or so) in the baggage compartment.
see what that does for you.
you CAN get there from here

Weight and density altitude are always out there to some degree. They are variable. Our takeoff and landing techniques, in these conditions, cannot safely vary. They must be consistently most efficient. To be consistently most efficient, the low ground effect takeoff and the apparent rate of closure or some slow power/pitch approach must be our normal techniques.

I know as I've 'learned' my plane I've found it will do things I didn't think it could....

Once of the big helps was using the STOL approach technique outlined on this site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrPJac80W9Y

Not sure how it applies to your plane/config .. but it shortened my landing distance substantially. I put on a whole pile of VG's as well (it's experimental and that brought down my stall speed a lot). And a big bore high compression setup helped take off nicely. But using that approach really shortened things at my home strip (I have obstructions to clear on both ends, this helped to descend over them without picking up a bunch of speed / float etc.) Just a thought

We need some realism here. Assuming your strip is at about the same elevation as Fort Smith, which is at 3252' MSL, on a 75 degree day with a "normal" altimeter, you've got a 5000' DA; 6000' at 85 degrees. That is not the same as anyone's DA who flies out of a near sea level airport. The difference in performance between a 2000' DA and a 5000' or 6000' DA is dramatic.

A 182 with a post 73 cuff is a fine short field performer, and I have a bunch of time in several different ones at high DAs (I was based at Laramie, WY, elev. 7250' for the first 26 years of my flying experience). I have no experience with any STOL mods in a 182. Assuming the Horton to be close to the post 73 cuff models, I can tell you that very light, I could get that airplane in and out of a 900' strip at a 5000' or 6000' DA. "Very light" is me and enough gas to get to Fort Smith safely, say 15-20 gallons, no baggage.

But if you haven't nailed 10 out of 10 landings in 500' or 600', you're not ready to try 900'. And as mentioned above, getting in is one thing, but getting out is another. Until you can consistently get out of Fort Smith on a high temp day in less than 600', don't try your 900' strip. You'll need 20 flaps, soft field technique (nose wheel just above the surface), and stay in very low ground effect until at least 70 knots/80 mph before climbing out. You need to practice soft field even at Fort Smith, because that's what you have at your strip.

So you need lots and lots of practice, so that you can do it right every time, not just most of the time, and you'll need to keep it light.

Years ago, Wife 1 and I bought some property north of Laramie, which was however wide it was by 1800' long. At the time, I was partnered in a TR182, and I thought it would be really cool to keep the airplane on our property at such time as we built on it. So I did a series of calculations to see whether it was practical. Taking into account fences at both ends and best practices for take off and landing, I concluded that she and I could consistently take off, even on a warm summer day, as long as I had only 20 gallons of gas in it, plus the usual carry on stuff, but no other baggage. That would be fine for day trips, because we'd then hop over to KLAR, fuel up, and be gone. I'd had too many experiences in which a fully loaded Skylane needed in excess of 2000' to get off the ground, so if we were going to travel, the only way would be to ferry it over to KLAR and have her drive over there with the baggage and/or kids, dog, etc., and load up from there.

That's my guess as to what you'll find you have to do, too. In my case, we split up before we ever built anything, she got that property in the settlement, and I never had to put my theoretical calculations into practice.

Cary

Rich, Are you in Hamilton? I can come over anytime and fly with your guy.

Yes, my friend with the 182 is based out of Hamilton. Sent you a pm

I also work at Aircraft Structural Repair in Stevensville. Great taildragger/ land short type of Flight Instructor based out of here by the name of Alex Athens. He has a 206 and Cessna 180 with Texas Skyways engine and 88" Bigfoot. Flies to private ranch in the Selway and has a great feel for short field work.

Richard