Looking into that this weekend all being well. Dropping the family off at the neighbours before I hanger it here is very much on the radar unless this slope turns out to make it a no brainer.

Now you're talking....when I first bought my home strip I looked at putting the wires underground so I could easily get in/out with the family on board. Was going to be about $60k NZD to do one end only! You can do a lot of drop offs and pick ups elsewhere for that kind of money. While it would be nice just to load up and go you soon get used to shuffling for the times you need to do that.

G'day NZMaule, you on the mainland?

Four seats is not a deal breaker, just a nice to have. We can always re-position for those flights. Load up and go with the wifey is kind of the whole point of the one long hay paddock consideration however. Otherwise we are back to the airport, 20min drives each way and the R/STOL Twin Comanche project. Looking like a nice 5-235 Maule would fit into the budget. Doubt we would stretch to a 7-260 or a Cessna 180 with Sportsman STOL etc. We are both more keen on the bush plane option, especially as we live in Switzerland surrounded by deserted beaches..

Have a mate coming around to do a walk over, then we'll do a few fly overs, then will be going for a ride in an aircraft who's airfoils do not move at the same speed as the fuselage, land here and see if it is worth all the extra $$. Then try to get a ride in a Highlander or SSTOL to see what that is all about. Will see if I can get an agg pilot's opinion on the bumpathon here as well as they are always operating out of steep strips. That's the plan so far..

Flow wrote:I had a better survey of it today and it is more like 530ft of take off roll on a 8-10 degree, 15-18% down hill slope before a bit of a drop off. The wire height is actually at the 630ft mark. So if you lift off at or before 530ft you have at least 15ft below your wheels to the top of the poles to start with.

With that amount of slope and the wires already cleared if off the ground at 530 ft I would say it is very doable if kept light. Many single engine Cessna's can do that without any slope if kept light near sea level. So with your hill to assist you should be fine in calm conditions.

I can't speak for the tailwind scenario very accurately, but as others have mentioned that is where it may not work too well. I'd say you have enough there to do it in calm conditions and see what kind of margins you are working with before trying it in the wind or with any load aboard. At least that's what I would do in my plane.

Anyone else watch the video of the Zenith 801 with the Roush V8 in front of the firewall? Something like that might fit your bill, or maybe
a bit tamer.

Yeah, the one with the turbo IO-360 is pretty impressive as well. With all the bumps and rolls on this place I think shocks and big tires would be needed to help protect against an unlucky bounce lifting an upwind wing or a wheel being swallowed. It will be about 200ft wide and with cambering off on each side so I should be able to land wing down into the wind no matter where is it is coming from.

The approach and departure is very open and long, EFATO options straight ahead are really good once clear of the lines, engine failure on the roll on this steep slope not so good, thinking about marking a spot to aim for between the trees on the drive for that or some kind of mushy/arresting fence on the bottom half of the Western side and maybe cameras on the road to add to the wind top and bottom web page that we can check on the ipad pre takeoff could be helpful in case a glide over the road under the power lines is ever the best option. OK landing on the other side.

With roughly 100ft of uphill gradient will need to be an early decision point for landing with a tail wind component and should probably look at taking the trees out at the top. Terrain flattens out up there.

Winds from the East/SE are rare and would likely catch me out with roll over from the trees especially as I would have less familiarity with conditions in that quarter. Should I prefer an M5 with a slightly faster approach speed but bigger ailerons than the M6 for this reason?

Do I need to borrow the neighbours digger and try to flatten it out, (bit of a mission TBH)? Anything I am missing here?

Thanks again folks for the masses of helpful and sensible advice. Really very much appreciated.

Regardless of the airplane, the engine, the gear, etc, you are in a place where you need to manage wind, slope, ground effect, kinetic energy of airspeed, potential gravity thrust of altitude, heat, and all natural forms of energy. Like Denny said, we are trained to think we must climb at Vx or Vy as soon as possible, giving up ground effect as soon as we reach the appropriate airspeed. The appropriate, in ground effect, airspeed here is as fast as we can go and still miss the wire. Every second leaving low ground effect is energy lost. Every extra foot over the wire is energy lost. It is like playing chicken. We want to get up but slow flight maneuvering, at low altitude but out of ground effect, is scary and dangerous.

Crop dusters hate spraying downhill onto obstructions. It is real easy to start up too soon. It is real scary to start up too late. That may be why we don't mind going under wires so much.

I missed the question about aileron size. Getting a wing back up smartly from a gust disruption has much more to do with rudder effectiveness, and especially good rudder usage, than aileron effectiveness and usage. Just a bit of dynamic proactive rudder, just a bit of tail wagging, will mitigate the disruption to begin with. It is more effective to bracket the target than to wait for the disruption and then react.

FWIW, taking off uphill on any kind of slope is a non-starter, from my perspective. I'm far from any wild-eyed back country expert, but I'm pretty good at making my airplane do what it can. Taking off downhill with a tailwind isn't nearly as dicey as trying to take off uphill. I'm flying a "hot rod" 172, a 63 P172D with a 180hp Lycoming and CS prop.

I don't know your elevation, but that plays an enormous part. If you're close to sea level, you can handle a much shorter strip than if you're even a couple thousand feet higher. At my usual density altitudes where I live, which are often in the 7000' MSL range, I can get down and stopped pretty easily in 600-700', but I can't begin to take off in that distance, even loaded lightly.

Just a "for instance"--one of the places several of us here like to go is La Garita Ranch, in the San Luis Valley of Colorado. It's a sloped strip with a fairly steep gradient, 2800' long (for us small tire folk), with another 800' (for the big donut crowd--too rough for me). It's at approximately 7800' MSL, so density altitudes can get up in the neighborhood of 10,000' in the daytime. It's essentially an east/west runway. Landing uphill to the west, which is usually into a headwind, I have little difficulty using about a third of that 2800' smooth part, without straining to make it very short and without much braking--just land. (Well, sometimes it can get pretty squirrely with a gusty crosswind, but that's a different story.)

Taking off downhill, I've had a tailwind every time, sometimes quartering, and up to better than 15 knots (based on the windsock sticking straight out). This last time, as I passed the halfway mark, I was just barely below flying speed, as the airplane skipped a little and rose into low ground effect maybe 100-200' farther than the halfway mark. The windsock showed something a little less than 15 knots, slightly quartering from the south, but mostly from the west. The airplane was loaded fairly heavily, with a little less than half tanks but all my camping stuff and my Golden Retriever. I've weighed everything, and fully loaded and gassed, the airplane with dog and me and all that stuff is about 25 lbs under its 2350# gross, so it probably was about 200# under gross.

Frankly, there are very few airplanes or pilots capable of consistently flying in and out of a 450' airstrip, even at sea level. Everything has to be just right every time, and that's just not very likely.

Cary

Cheers Cary,

We are at 500>600ft AMSL and have DAs between -2000ft and 2500ft an average summerish day would be 1500ft.
So your vote is on 530ft, 15+% down slope, clear departure and 720ft, 15+% up slope, 25 degree approach / 530ft 15+% up slope clear approach is too short for regular use even in a light experimental or more just an example of how big an impact 10k DA can have?

What is the slope is at La Garita Ranch BTW?

Contact, all understood on the foot work, (very nicely put though) having flown with flaperons that were pretty effective to 1/3rd travel all the way into a deep stall have to say it was quite a luxury. You wouldn't consider aileron authority on the back of the curve at all in aircraft selection for windy spots with roll from trees or you saying an M6 has plenty?

Flow,

I'm not very familiar with any mods, but yes certified airplanes have to meet adequate roll rates for coordinated turns. I'm just reminding us that we don't need a coordinated turn when slow and low and lined up with the landing zone. In fact coordinated turns cause wing wagging and increase the negative effect of disturbed air. If our orientation is dynamic proactive rudder, we are less likely to be drawn into dynamic adverse yaw wing wagging in disturbed air. When we need it all, full rudder and full aileron, terror will make it happen. Dutch rolls to 45 degrees bank each way is good practice. But avoiding the temptation to bring the upset wing back up with aileron and not standing on the rudder at the same time helps in rough air. Dynamic proactive rudder, tail wagging, seems to keep the wing more stable. To be there in rough air, it needs to be there in calm air. It needs to be muscle memory any time we are actively directing our course in a direct line.

contactflying wrote:Flow,
I'm just reminding us that we don't need a coordinated turn when slow and low and lined up with the landing zone....

Indeed and well said sir, another useful example of this is glider flying close to a ridge especially in light to moderate wind and thermally active unstable air. Airspeed can be lowish sometimes especially if you are below the tops and building height and getting rolled into the ridge is a real risk. Kicking away (and unloading) rather than just praying to the aileron Gods can be a lifesaver as the direction change is immediate. That said with this bouncy little strip with no real go around option especially with a tail wind, I am thinking I may well be in need of full aileron on the ground one day to preserve the wing tips... At least the M6 has a wide stance. All the undulations and bumps is also making me have the trike, tail dagger debate, thinking about the Zenith 801 again but then I am probably asking for a prop strike with that short coupled beastie... maybe as much fun as this might be an R44 is really the way to go...

Thanks again guys, it has been really helpful looking at this from a number of angles.

Sounds like you have good orientation. Good luck.