The Sportsman STOL advices for short field take off in the Cessna 182.

10 degrees, of flaps, and at 40MPH IAS lower them to 30 degrees and take off.
Im doing it and it works.
Now what about VX short field?
Im not too inclined to keep the plane at 40 MPH and keep the angle at those speeds.
What I do is lower the nose a bit to get to 50 or 55 MPH and keep that speed and angle.
Any advice on how could this be done better, or if this is an ok technique is appreciate it.

Here is a video of a take off yesterday 400 meter grass runway with obstacles.

A few things that will get you off the ground shorter.
1- Where you are sitting, if you are turned from the other direction(left instead of right) you wont have to fight the torque,it will help you line up with the runway. ( that way you can use the energy that you gave up by turning the plane)(you can come in with more power a little faster that way)(your tail should be down by the time you get lined up)
2- Trim nose down all the way( your strong enough to hold the yoke back), like putting flaps on your elevator.( yes I know if you elevator cable breaks you will wreck)( if your worried about that you should worry about the engine quitting also)
3- Start your roll with the yoke in your belly and keep it there until the tail goes down, then neutral till you lift off.(again your strong enough to hold it there)(try it with 30 degrees already in and see if you don't get off sooner)(Your pretty busy so keep it simple)
4- Once off the ground (6 inches) push over and stay in ground affect gaining speed until you can zoom over the obstacle trading speed for altitude. (don't fly off the strip with the nose in the air not being able to see the obstacle and mush into it because you pulled the nose up higher)

The main goal is to clear the obstacle! you don't need to keep the angle steep after you have do that.

These are just my thoughts, they are worth as much as you had to pay for them.
Try each one independently and see if it helps any!
Great take off as it is.

Enjoy GT

Good job, but I agree with GT. You gave up quite a lot of free low ground effect. I understand the anxiety to get started up, but once you are more than a few feet up, you are losing ground effect. With 150-180 hp, the percentage gain in kinetic energy of pressure airspeed (zoom reserve in the form of airspeed) is much greater than if you had lots of excess engine thrust for climb. This low ground effect technique will also give you maneuvering speed going over the trees. This maneuvering speed becomes very important if the engine quits. With maneuvering speed, you can decide which trees to crash between.

Get the nose wheel just off the grass, like GT said, just as soon as possible. This will cause the first significant increase in the rate of acceleration. Then get the mains off as soon as it will fly in low ground effect. This will cause the second increase in the rate of acceleration. Finally push hard and dynamically work the wheel fore/aft a bit to maintain six inches off the grass. This will cause the third increase in the rate of acceleration.

The reason most people can't seem to get maximum level airspeed at sea level is that they are not flying six inches off the sand like the test pilot.

In the zoom up over the trees, don't climb higher than necessary to miss. Once over the trees, level the airplane to accelerate to Vy before attempting to climb out.

I haven't looked at an airspeed indicator in forty years, except to teach PTS stuff, so I can't give you numbers. I expect with that much strip, you will be at Vy before zooming up. Don't hold me to that. Fly the wing, not the airspeed indicator. All that damn thing is going to do is worry and distract you.

contactflying wrote:I haven't looked at an airspeed indicator in forty years, except to teach PTS stuff

What!!!! And I'm betting you don't use an Angle of Attack Indicator in light aircraft either... You're just damn lucky to be alive.

(And for those of you who are Smiley challenged, in this case the long nose guy means tongue in cheek. Thank you, thank you very much)

Carry On.

Gump

Gump-Instrument indications, including airspeed, are not necessary except when flying under IFR. In low work, including takeoff and landing, they can be distracting. There are many better indications of how the airplane is doing and none of them require looking inside when close to terrain and obstructions. If we stay high except to takeoff and land and we use high patterns with very long legs, we can basically fly by reference to instruments all the time. I am interested in sharing useful contact flying techniques. I am not trying to discourage high instrument flying.

I am not trying to make you'all have to endure crop duster stuff. I refer to those techniques because I think they illustrate the usefulness of contact flying techniques. I have done a lot of off field flying, but most of it has been in a loaded Pawnee or Call Air. As they are low power to weight aircraft, I think it relates to the kind of flying you guys do. I have also flown cubs, champs, taylorcraft, ercoupe, tri-pacer, colt, and cessnas into unimproved mountain strips in Arizona, NM, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon.

I am old and disabled. I started young and was given lots of free and inexpensive opportunities. I flew all my life and now only do a little flying mostly teaching instructors. All I want to do is give back to the aviation community and at least talk about flying some.

I can tell from the comments, you are a leader among this group. I know that a lot of contact flying techniques are not popular with all pilots. That is understandable since very little is written about maneuvering flight techniques. Maneuvering flight is not necessary to accomplish most aviation missions, except to takeoff and land. Maneuvering flight is even considered wrong in most aviation communities. I expect criticism. I just want to get some ideas out there. I have lived long enough to know that in almost any discussion, I could be wrong.

GumpAir wrote:What!!!! And I'm betting you don't use an Angle of Attack Indicator in light aircraft either... You're just damn lucky to be alive.

Haha. Only after soloing and flying a fair amount of hours in a lawn chair was I awarded with an airspeed indicator, upon introduction to the almighty Cessna 152. Gotta learn to use your face and ears first.

I have to say as a low time C-170 pilot that using ground effect helps a lot. I can peel the mains off with the stall horn chirping and accelerate much faster to vx to start the climb. Using this method I can clear obstructions faster then starting the climb as soon as the mains leave the ground.

I was speaking tongue in cheek Contact, just being a smart ass. You're preachin' to the choir. I'm a fly-the-wing kinda guy.

Gump

contactflying wrote:Gump-Instrument indications, including airspeed, are not necessary except when flying under IFR. In low work, including takeoff and landing, they can be distracting. There are many better indications of how the airplane is doing and none of them require looking inside when close to terrain and obstructions. If we stay high except to takeoff and land and we use high patterns with very long legs, we can basically fly by reference to instruments all the time. I am interested in sharing useful contact flying techniques. I am not trying to discourage high instrument flying.

I am not trying to make you'all have to endure crop duster stuff. I refer to those techniques because I think they illustrate the usefulness of contact flying techniques. I have done a lot of off field flying, but most of it has been in a loaded Pawnee or Call Air. As they are low power to weight aircraft, I think it relates to the kind of flying you guys do. I have also flown cubs, champs, taylorcraft, ercoupe, tri-pacer, colt, and cessnas into unimproved mountain strips in Arizona, NM, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon.

I am old and disabled. I started young and was given lots of free and inexpensive opportunities. I flew all my life and now only do a little flying mostly teaching instructors. All I want to do is give back to the aviation community and at least talk about flying some.

I can tell from the comments, you are a leader among this group. I know that a lot of contact flying techniques are not popular with all pilots. That is understandable since very little is written about maneuvering flight techniques. Maneuvering flight is not necessary to accomplish most aviation missions, except to takeoff and land. Maneuvering flight is even considered wrong in most aviation communities. I expect criticism. I just want to get some ideas out there. I have lived long enough to know that in almost any discussion, I could be wrong.

This is how the pro's do it.

http://youtu.be/ThoZNxy2JZk

GumpAir wrote:I was speaking tongue in cheek Contact, just being a smart ass. You're preachin' to the choir. I'm a fly-the-wing kinda guy.

Gump, maybe you should design an AOSA (angle of smart ass) indicator.

Don't give up on us, Contact, smart asses and all. Even dummies like me are learning a lot from your posts.

Tongue in Cheek or Smart in Ass, Gump speaks my language. It's these other languages, like Thesaurus, that I have trouble with.

Don't worry about the smart ass. I have taught in high school. You can't throw erasers over the network.