Was playing in the desert this weekend, and decided to drag the wheels on this runway surface to give myself a "feel" for when it's NOT good to land - I could see water on the side and knew it would be soft / muddy.

Touched down a bit too hard and could feel the airplane being sucked it - airspeed got a bit too low and almost got stuck there!

Any advice appreciated....picture was taken after departure, so a bit high, but you can see the wet spots in the tracks (tracks on the right is mine).

I was in a C182 - had 30 degrees of flaps when I touched down - this should probably have been 20?

Rookie mistake, and a lack of experience in action!

The answer is pretty easy and I only say this partly in jest when doubts have you trying to dab a wheel for feel - let your buddy land first...

In Nevada they will drop a bowling ball from the airplane. If it bounces, you are good to go!

Glad you were able to pull that off, would have been a long night.

offroute wrote:The answer is pretty easy and I only say this partly in jest when doubts have you trying to dab a wheel for feel - let your buddy land first...

Exactly, and not in jest.

All dry lakes are not alike. Some up here in northern Nevada are like concrete, even with six inches of water on top. Others, dry and hard, and not a drop of water on them for six months, and bottomless mud-pits under the 2" crust. I'm leery of even taking my four-wheeler out on one I don't know until I've walked it myself.

Gump

When I did this with my 172 I would have the flaps at 20......shallow approach so I did not have to flare much at all and risk hitting the ground too hard. Keep the airspeed up with the nose off and hand on the throttle to be ready to get out of there.

This is what I do (not saying I am an expert - this is just my method):

When I drag ground to feel the surface, I only touch the wheels for the shortest possible moment on the first pass - 30 feet of ground roll at the most. Then I go around immediately and come back for another low pass to look at the wheel marks. What I see on the second low pass tells me whether I am prepared to do a longer drag, or not. This works in tall grass or brush, *shallow* snow, dry mud, soft gravel - but it always makes me nervous when I do it... I prefer to avoid those surfaces whenever I can, in favor of walking them first (where possible).

Example, I was flying south some time ago and passed by a favorite local airstrip. It was under a blanket of shallow snow (a few inches) which had melted and thawed a few times. Naturally I was really leery about touching it. I came in with a few knots extra speed so I had plenty of control and energy, and dabbed a wheel on the surface just for an instant. It felt a grabby and I pulled back immediately. On the second pass, I could see the tracks I left in the snow from a long way away. The snow was wet and clumpy.. Big chunks of snow had been thrown everywhere by the wheel. I didn't even consider another drag after seeing that, no way jose.

You did great!! If you have been to a place 20-30 times in all types of weather you can usually tell just by looking what it will be like. You did what you have to do in the unknown landing. Ya a little less flap might have helped but what you had worked!! We really don't train to drag a strip do we. Something to think about next time you get back home early and don't want to stop flying. Try running the strip at stall speed with whatever flap speed you feel is right. Just keep the wheels touching and stay no less than a few mph below stall speed. You won't see over the nose just get used to it.
DENNY

It sounds like you touched a bit hard, unintentionally.

I've said this many times: You can practice the majority of the skills you'll need for off airport ops ON an airport. Practice slow approaches, precise touchdown spot landings, VERY light touches, increasingly long "drags" all on an airport somewhere.

Then, when you have those skills really down pat, only then should you even think about pioneering a landing site.

At that point, all you're missing is the site evaluation skills, but that's another topic.

MTV

Being a off-airport noob I only have one thing to add. Precision airspeed control; you must be able to maintain precise airspeed control while not looking at the ASI when dragging a landing site. This is something that I'm not good at and it nearly cost me an airplane; those of you that have been around a while may remember that story I had intended to checkout a runway that was snow covered but had tracks on it. I let my airspeed slow and ended up landing in several inches of slush. I got luck lucky but it taught me several very important lessons. One of those was that I sucked at airspeed control and I had no business doing that kind of flying until I no longer needed to reference the ASI.