Here at my home airport, I rarely get to land without additional throttle and it is definitely part of the local instruction. In summer there are gusty 20-30 knot winds that blow straight down the runway but the runway is cut into a tall stand of trees so airspeed tends to disappear once you clear the trees and start descending for the flare.

Motoadve, I don't want to turn this thread into a personal tutorial, but did I hear correctly on the video that best takeoff is 30 flaps and the stick all the way back? I have 8.5s on the main and an 8.0 on the front and I still sit pretty tail-low. I'm curious if you have an issue with dragging the tail with that method. In the school 172 soft field method I would start with the stick all the way back but check forward for a fair while after the nose wheel came off, waiting for the mains to lift off too.

I'm really interested in the AoA. Will do some more research on that. I think it would be pretty awesome for dialling in the approach on floats.

Last question... do you have stock brakes? Mine are absolutely terrible and I'm wondering if that is inherent in the '63 model. I haven't done an accurate measure, but I'd guess I need 700' or more to come to a stop from a 70mph approach.

albravo wrote:...... it looks like you pulled the power back fairly sharp to get the dramatic drop in altitude. If I pull the power, the plane drops at a very steep angle, to the point that I wonder if I have enough energy to flare to compensate. I'm not looking at the instruments, but it seems my VSI is very negative compared to my airspeed. ....

In my experience, if you make a power-off approach at very close to the stall speed, there is usually a very high sink rate.
When you flare, the airplane attitude angle changes, but generally there isn't enough energy left to arrest the sink rate.
So you SLAM into the ground, not good.
A shot of power at just the right time is required to stop that sink and result in a nice landing.

I usually carry some power on a slow approach, and jockey the throttle to control things--
too much sink, add lower / not enough sink, lose some power.
The old use attitude for airspeed, power for altitude thing.

Albravo, good job on the throttle usage. In the video, notice that the nose wheel stays on the ground but the tail is low. He wanted to get the nose light as soon as possible (yoke full back.). As the nose wheel starts to come off, he moved the yoke forward to reduce the angle of attack. Nose light, even with wheel turning a bit is more energy efficient than nose wheel well off and the resultant too high angle of attack you mentioned.

The same when the mains come off. He pushed the yoke forward to stay in low ground effect the couple of seconds available before having to pitch up to the top of the nearest trees.

Energy savings for zoom reserve:
Nose light as soon as possible.
Mains off as soon as possible.
Low ground effect as long as possible.
Pitch up to neither Vx or Vy but to a pitch attitude that will clear any obstacle by the least altitude we are comfortable with.

Just read hotrod 180. Good job on throttle usage there as well.

I think training for soft field take offs on pavement tends to be less than adequate. How many times have you seen pilots (not just students) who do a near wheelie to make a soft field take off? And how many trainers have bent or broken tail tie-down rings? Then when they actually get to a soft field, they use the same technique

Just for the heckuvit, I installed a $15 tail tie-down ring protector on my airplane, but it's yet to be scratched. It's neither necessary nor desirable to raise the nose that far. But I start out every soft field take off with the wheel all the way back until the elevators start to bite, and then I move it forward to keep the nose wheel just barely off the dirt. I also dial in a little nose down trim--I find it easier to pull rather than push, to keep the airplane in low ground effect. Keeping the nose too high in the air increases the AoA way too much, slows the take off, and can result in a crash.

Here's one of the better examples of how not to do it:



Cary

I have been nailed on poor terminology. The FAA sanctioned PTS should take it's knocks as well. Separating soft field takeoff from short field takeoff is confusing. They are done exactly the same when truly energy efficient. The landings are different. The takeoffs, done well, are identical. KISS.

No problem with tail strike on take offs, but I have a 700 in the front and you an 800 so that might make a bit of difference, yes 30 degrees of flaps with the Sportsman STOL for take off.

I have the Cleveland brakes,they do work real well.