Very funny Darin! Ok I have to confess, I wasn't actually delivering the doughnuts and chocolate milk to you and the boys but had to leave them because I couldn't get airborne with the extra twelve pounds. The private Flying Hawkes airstrip will remain as is. The "bushes" will never be cut because they are in the stream bed and your Uncle Samuel will not let the trees on the other end be touched either. Your Dad does an incredible job maintaining the place and Captain Leigh says your mom's cookies are the best.

I am listening carefully to the advice given. Lots of ideas from a wide and experienced pilot base. Some things work, some do not. I hope to fly a 206 in the backcountry someday, and hope to have it figured out so when it's hot and operating at gross weight I have something of my own to draw from.

I can't wait to get a group photo with you and your Cessna 180 and your legendary brother Brian in his Ponk Rocket 182 this spring. Beautiful installation by the way, it looks awesome.

Flying Hawkes will forever have my respect. The kids bought me a Go Pro for Christmas, so I'm closing the gap with the big boys. It will be neat to film the approach in, as it's fairly technical in its own right. The truth be known, there are only two airstrips that I have found that are more difficult as far as the departure goes than here. Of course I'm only referring to public airstrips and ones within the capability of a Cessna 150, fives all around.

Richard

Good job
You were using every bit of performance out of that plane, no room for error or a slight cough.

GumpAir wrote:Cary, using over 10 degrees isn't going to help for rotating and climb out of ground effect. But, if your plan is to get off the ground into ground effect, and stay there..... Then popping in 20, 30, or even 40 degrees works to get the wheels off the ground way better than 0 or 10. Drag is not the issue in using ground effect to accelerate for take-off, it's just like using 40 degrees and slowing down way below Vso for short field work. it gets, or keeps, you in the air way slow, and from there you do what you need to do.

Go try it in your Cessna at different flap settings up to full flaps, but don't climb more than a foot or two, and work the wheels off the ground. You may be surprised to find that big flap coming down just levitates the airplane way below flying speed.

Of course weight, DA, winds, and terrain all have to factor in too. Some days best thing is just have another beer, and wait till things look better.

Gump

That's interesting, I saw it the same way Cary did. I followed you right to the "do what you need to do" part. Do you build enough speed in ground effect to parachute over the pucker bushes with 30 down or do you creep them back in ground effect, and zoom at the end?

Well.......

That's where that training and experience thing come in.

In that little C150 at that strip on an 80 degree, 10,000 ft DA day. 40 degrees flaps might pop you off the surface, but no matter how you accelerate and milk those flaps up, you're never gonna leave ground effect, and will just wallow around until you run into something.

But on a doable day, my own experience in single-engine Cessnas, and use a huge grain of salt reading this considering the source, has been to use the minimum to get me off the ground depending on the drag from the mud, snow, whatever, and then milk flaps up (manual or electric) to 20 degrees. From there I accelerate as fast as I can to zoom for climb speed over my obstacle, or just a comfortable speed to where I can start a cruise climb.

I think best L/D flap settings on most small Cessnas is 20 degrees anyway, so milking up to there works well for me. But, like I said, it depends. In the video, he has terrain to fall into, so milking flaps is a moot point because he can point the nose down and let gravity accelerate him. Short and flat, with big trees at the end, you gotta get them up quick as you accelerate, and then have enough speed to climb when you get there. Back to that experience thing for go-no go.

Gump

Makes sense. Thanks Gump.

GumpAir wrote:Cary, using over 10 degrees isn't going to help for rotating and climb out of ground effect. But, if your plan is to get off the ground into ground effect, and stay there..... Then popping in 20, 30, or even 40 degrees works to get the wheels off the ground way better than 0 or 10. Drag is not the issue in using ground effect to accelerate for take-off, it's just like using 40 degrees and slowing down way below Vso for short field work. it gets, or keeps, you in the air way slow, and from there you do what you need to do.

Go try it in your Cessna at different flap settings up to full flaps, but don't climb more than a foot or two, and work the wheels off the ground. You may be surprised to find that big flap coming down just levitates the airplane way below flying speed.

Of course weight, DA, winds, and terrain all have to factor in too. Some days best thing is just have another beer, and wait till things look better.

Gump

My concern as much as anything is the poky flap movement--instead of "popping", the electric flaps on a 150 to the best of my recollection move more like "creeping". With my airplane which has manual flaps, "popping" them is easy. But even "popping" with the nose held too high won't be as efficient as if the nosewheel is barely off the ground, due to excessive angle of attack. Then the flaps have to be raised slowly to allow the speed to build in ground effect, or the airplane won't be able to climb out of ground effect soon enough to clear the obstacles at the end. At the 5000'+ DA of that strip, climb performance of the 150 out of ground effect will be marginal at best, and any flaps at all will reduce the climb rate.

Cary

True. And finding the right combination of flaps, pitch angle, and surface conditions to get off the ground and fly is totally variable, real similar to finding the step in a float plane.

As for electric flaps, my experience in C206/207's flying out of mud a good part of the year every year I flew and used this technique, they were just fine and went down or retracted plenty fast.

Gump

This is an emergency, not a plan to do it that way, technique, but flaps help us jump a fairly low obstruction, lower the nose over the obstruction, and perhaps settle into ground effect beyond. Like Gump said, we are more concerned with getting over than with speed here. Of course we want as much speed as possible to begin the zoom over the obstruction. There are tradeoffs, but flaps, especially Fowler flaps, allow the airplane to fly at much slower speeds than without.

Flaps, even full flaps, do not prevent raising the nose wheel just off the surface in a 150. The nose wheel should be raised quickly on any surface. Unless we get it off, the flaps will increase its friction.

When to add flaps and the amounts depend more on multi-task dexterity and handle position. I never used the Tri-Pacer sized flaps on a Pawnee because I was cushioned up almost too high to reach the handle and they didn't do much anyway.

GumpAir wrote:Well.......

That's where that training and experience thing come in.

In that little C150 at that strip on an 80 degree, 10,000 ft DA day. 40 degrees flaps might pop you off the surface, but no matter how you accelerate and milk those flaps up, you're never gonna leave ground effect, and will just wallow around until you run into something.

Gump

You have just enough power to arrive at the scene.

benflyn wrote:You have just enough power to arrive at the scene.

No shit. They're all gutless.

Guess my whole point to this is based on a comment above about, "the POH says...."

Well, the POH is a fine place to start, and needs to be used in POH conditions. But in off-road, backcountry, or non-POH situations, there are lots of cool techniques for your bag of tricks that can be learned and practiced to proficiency that are not in the book. Flaps used beyond what is recomended is one of them. Go practice and experiment in safe conditions, and go from there.

Gump

I agree with Gump 100%. The POH is part safety, part cover the manufacturer's ass, and part political.

I find it interesting how people from this Forum, who are used to flying and using all they have or going into tight places are like...."good job you used every bit you got and did fine." Or some good advice etc....nothing harsh as we all, in this group of people are used to seeing short airstrips like his. I mean ya'll have seen some of the places I take my Mooney! Others think It's crazy, typically because it's in a Mooney...cause if you put a C-172 in the picture often people wouldn't think anything of it.

Anyway, what I am getting to is that on another forum they are chastising this video and the pilot....they are like..."Ohhh he's stupid, ohh he should have had more runway...he's dangerous." Of course these are the same folks that often think I am crazy for flying a Mooney on anything but asphalt and 10K foot runways. So I say good job to you for knowing the performance limitations of your airplane and using what you got to have some fun. We can't all afford Super cubs or 185's!

Edit: And some of us want to go fast

Thanks Gump and Jim. You guys are right on, I wish I had your type of formal instruction many years ago, it's not always fun trying to figure it out on your own.

Hopefully someday I can meet some of you fine folks.

It's amazing the contrast between here and the Aopa forum. I posted the same thing there, with the genuine intent to see if someone could give me just one little thing that would improve my technique. They are beating me up and scaring me to the point I am considering pulling the video.

This is why my friends I don't show what a common every day trainer is capable of. The pavement pilots can't handle the truth, it would blow their minds and anger them. A Wing and a Prayer, no matter what you fly, don't't ever forget a departure prayer!

Richard

And thanks to you Piper Painter, I was writing my post while you posted. You have been an inspiration to me as well. I would love to pick your brain some time as I have access to a Mooney M20C.

Richard

I agree with piperpainter, on some other forums I posted some videos, like on the Beechtalk, I posted a shortfield take off ,not your typical pavement short field take off just to show off, this one is for real , mud ,grass 1000ft beatup strip loaded plane and hot, one guy said you suck that wasnt short at all. My reply: it is a short field, and it is a take off.
Or when I posted my first offairport landing , that is ilegal, stupid, crazy bla bla, but some other people like the videos so I keep putting them.

To the OP do not remove the video from AOPA, have fun reading the replies, some have never been even to a grass strip, or less than 5,000 ft runway, and do not explore the limits of their aircraft to take the most out of them, the sound of the stall horn its a thing of of horror.

So Im not surpirsed at all on those comments.
Again great job

The AOPA folks are pretty risk-averse, which is not all bad. Keep it in mind. On the other hand, there is nothing illegal about the flight operation, so it might be good to let them stew on it. I'll post a reply over there in a bit.

In the meantime, here...

The technical side looks fairly good. It appears that you know how to manage the soft field, the aircraft performance, and make it all work. What I would say is that true short field operations are fly-or-crash operations. If you can make changes or choices to give yourself bigger margins, it is a good idea to do so. You appear to already have thought that through as you suggest you will have less fuel if you repeat the adventure. The other thing I would say, is that it can become too comfortable to operate that close to the margin if you aren't relentless in evaluating your performance and having a solid plan. Make sure you brief the entire departure and have a rock solid abort point planned.

Looked fine. One thing you might try sometime is to climb out with 10 degrees instead of 20. When I spent time with a 150 for short field ops, I was always a lot higher above the fence with a better climb gradient and climb rate with 10 degrees...every time. 20 degrees always got off the ground quicker, but the climb gradient was so much worse I felt it got cancelled out for obstruction clearance. That was practicing with really nice dirt, though, and not rough with tall grass like your example.

It was interesting to find the minimum sink rate at idle in the 150 was quite a bit less with 10 degrees of flap than with 20 degrees of flap. Min sink is a good estimate for finding Vx and flap setting for the best climb gradient. This speed with 10 degrees of flap was significantly less than the published Vx for the 150H I was flying at the time.

I think one of the differences between the Red Board and here is that there, criticism often isn't constructive at all--it's just put downs. Here, although we may criticize or disagree one another, it's in the spirit of improving--unless we see somebody doing something really dangerous. Some here have scads of experience in the back country, and some of us have lots of experience in milking the most out of our airplanes in other circumstances. I'm a relative newbie in back country ops, but although I have some time in some HP airplanes, I've been flying lower end Cessnas most of my life. Here we try to share our experiences and skills when someone asks for help--there it often seems as if asking for help is a sure way to get bashed.

I like the analogy to getting a floatplane on the step--one of the things I sucked at, at first when I was taking the seaplane training this past summer. Getting that ideal AOA took awhile, and I think the same is true when trying to get a low powered airplane off of a soft surface or in a relatively short distance. It takes some experimentation and practice. Same with the electric flaps--some are slower than others, and I just can't recall from the last time I flew a 150, which I think was about 10 or 11 years ago.

One of the things that has been mentioned which deserves repeating is to minimize the load more. 150s came with 2 different size fuel tanks, and the "long range" tanks held enough fuel that 2 "FAA-size" males plus full fuel would be well over gross. Even with the standard tanks full, there's not a lot of leeway. With a gross of only 1600 lbs., anything that can be done to lower the take off weight will be beneficial. For instance, instead of full fuel minus half an hour (about 22 gallons), if that means that a place to refuel is only half an hour away, I'd be inclined to go in with an hour and a quarter of fuel in the tanks (about 7 gallons), at the most, half an hour to get to the refueling place plus a 45 minute reserve, knocking 90 lbs. off the take off weight.

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is leaning for the density altitude. At 50F and 5000' elevation, the DA is about 5500', well into the altitude in which leaning for take off is beneficial. That would eke out a little more power out of that little Continental.

Cary

motoadve wrote: To the OP do not remove the video from AOPA, have fun reading the replies, some have never been even to a grass strip, or less than 5,000 ft runway, and do not explore the limits of their aircraft to take the most out of them, the sound of the stall horn its a thing of of horror.
So Im not surpirsed at all on those comments.
Again great job

It's amazing how expert some become after eleven hours in the pattern with a 251 hour instructor. Me? I'm an extreme amateur, but I used to love to get in & out short in the Mooney. I never flew real back country like Piper Painter mind you but that wing is a lot bigger than you think.

I watched your video two times and it did cause me to pucker with you a little. I don't think you could have done better if you weighed a ton.