I have fussed about leaving low ground effect earlier than necessary and hanging out well out of ground effect at slow speed in a high pitch attitude. That has always bothered me as an observer of takeoffs from my local airport at low DA with a half mile before trees. And I have fussed about little airplanes with big engines being poor trainers of a better better energy technique for this and tighter situations.

What if there just isn't much room for extra seconds acceleration in low ground effect? Now I may wish I was as good as MTV or Cary with the math and wish I had Aktahoe's light airplane with big engine.

What do we do with our normally powered airplane when it gets pucker tight? Let's say MTV's POH and math say we can just make it.

Use all the strip, even if you have to pull the airplane back into the trees. Sometimes a crooked run to the usable field is possible.

Set trim for cruise or slight descent in more powerful airplanes.

Go down hill and down drainage if at all possible.

Plan for lowest place in trees or even a rudder turn in low ground effect around trees, if possible.

Get tail up or nose wheel just off as soon as possible. Practice somewhere else what Just Off is.

If significant acceleration does not result from getting the tail up or nose wheel just off, something is wrong. Abort.

Get the main wheels off as soon as possible. Whether with flaps or elevator, we need the airplane flying in low ground effect as soon as it will fly in low ground effect. There is no book figure for this. Practice and find out when (by sound and feel; not by instrument) your airplane will first fly in low ground effect.

If significant acceleration does not result from getting level in low ground effect, something is wrong. Abort.

Wiggle the control wheel fore/aft just a bit to stay ahead of the aircraft and stay in low ground effect. Any pitch up here or staying in a pitched up attitude will hurt us. Wait patiently for the gut feeling we need to pitch up now.

When a Vx pitch attitude will take us just over the trees, pitch up to a Vx pitch attitude and direct our course just over the trees. This too needs to be practiced by staying in low ground effect on takeoff from longer fields with more speed. Only with practice will we get comfortable with when we should start up. Normal takeoff leaving ground effect sooner than necessary are practice doing the wrong thing.

If deceleration occurs, level the aircraft over the trees.

Like with anything, what we do most we do best. We need consider how many iterations of low ground effect we have and how many iterations of leaving low ground effect earlier than necessary we have. Yes, I know : Pilots will talk. They have been talking about me for fifty years and I am still puttering around.

I utilize level rudder turns from time to time. In fact, I did something fairly stupid not long ago and that knowledge coupled with good energy management in low ground effect probably saved a cold night with bent pieces for camp mates.

Good for you. Works! Never try to go over anything that can easily be gone around.

My father-in-law (Jack Beeson) was an Army Air Corps pilot well before WW2 started, and was recalled to active duty when the war began. (We found one entry signed by Wilbur Wright in his oldest logbook!) He retired many years later as a Lt Colonel, spending his post-war career in the Strategic Air Command. His last assignment was flying B-52s carrying nukes during the Cold War era... Anyway, though he talked about some of the stuff he did post-war (at least the un-classified stuff), he just did not EVER talk about the war years, or any of those war-time missions. The one exception was when my son-in-law asked him about his most memorable flight. This is the story he told us.

He was stationed in the South Pacific, flying cargo from rear areas to resupply the troops when he received orders to make a pickup of a top-secret cargo and fly it to one of the forward bases. When they arrived, the loadmaster could not tell him what the "classified" cargo was - only what it weighed (a LOT more than a single C-47 was supposed to carry), that it was urgently needed, and that there was no other plane available to take part of the load. Jack watched as the airplane was loaded to "significantly" over the max gross weight, even well past the "military emergency" weights that they used as a matter of SOP those days. The crew abandoned some of their personal gear to lighten the load, so that this "critical" classified cargo could be loaded. The mission had been planned so they would be able to take off at low tide, and use the full length of the PSP (perforated steel panel) runway that stretched from the water on one side of the island to the water on the other side.

When they were loaded up, and it was time to go, he taxied out on the PSP until he could swing the tailwheel out into the water to get as much runway as he could, and started the takeoff run. The first part of the runway was uphill, so they were near flying speed when they got to the mid-point on the runway. At that point, there was no way to safely abort the takeoff - they were probably going into the water either way, so he continued the takeoff. Jack said he was barely able to get the C-47 off the ground before running into the ocean on the other side of the island. He had his crew pull the wheels up as soon as they were in ground-effect, lest the wheels catch a rogue wave and cause the plane to crash. They could barely maintain flight in ground effect - just way too heavy. Directly ahead of them was a fairly wide island covered with trees that reached much higher then their altitude - and they were headed straight for it. The wings were so low to the water that he really could not bank more than a couple of degrees, for fear of contacting the water. His co-pilot called out the wingtip altitude as he banked, and he "skidded" the airplane around to clear the island using mostly rudder... He had to do this TWO MORE TIMES before they were clear of that island group, and it was another hour before the plane burned off enough fuel that they could climb to a few hundred feet, where they made the rest of the flight.

When they arrived at the destination and began to unload the cargo, one of the largest cases fell to the ground and split open. The crew on the ground scrambled to cover everything back up to prevent anyone seeing what it was, but Jack had already seen the contents: The crate was filled with Australian beef steaks packed in dry ice and sawdust! Apparently, some General was having a big party for the brass, and Jack's entire "top secret" cargo was the food and booze for the party. The ground crew apparently admitted this when Jack and his crew went crazy over risking their lives for a stupid party...

To his dying day, Jack believed that he held a "world record" for the heaviest load ever lifted by a C-47... And it was only flying in "low ground effect" and "skidding around the turn" that saved that plane and crew.

That is a great story right there!

I bet those 'top secret' and 'urgent' cargos continue to move in USAF aircraft world wide... though I hope with more attention to W&B.

Great story. Ernest Gann almost hit the Taj Mahal hauling stuff during the war.