Aviator90 Episode 20

[music]

Man: [0:31] Welcome back to Aviator90 from Angle of Attack.
Congratulations. You made it the final episode of Air Work. We are
going to talk about short and soft field operations this time
around. These procedures, much like the steep turns, will be some
of your favorites.
[0:49] All right, so let’s do the short field stuff first. We’ll be
doing both a short field takeoff and a short field landing. Without
delay, let’s dive right in and check out the short field takeoff.
So here’s the scenario. Say you’re at a fairly short airstrip and
you also have an obstacle to climb over — say it’s 50 to 75 feet
tall — trees maybe, I don’t know. This is a very nerve wracking
situation.

[1:17] So for this takeoff we’re going to use one notch of flaps,
which is 10 degrees. We’ll use full power, hold the brakes, and
release when we’re ready to let her rip. We’ll rotate the aircraft
right at our safe takeoff speed, and then we’ll climb at Vx, which
is our greatest angle of climb, and in this aircraft that is 55
knots.

[1:41] All right, so here we go. Let’s try it for real. All right,
so like I said, we’re going to have full power and hold the brakes.
So bring in the power now, bringing it up, holding the brakes, and
release. All right, it’s going to take a lot of right rudder
pressure to counteract the airspeed is live; a little back pressure
on the yoke, not too much, and right at 55 knots rotate, so rotate
now. You maintain 55 knots throughout the procedure.

[2:15] Now keep everything coordinated and keep tracking down that
center line of the runway like we talked about on the takeoff
episode. Now, right at 55 knots, keep it there. We’ve got to get
over those trees. So keep it coming up, keep it coordinated, and
then once you get at a safe altitude you can bring up your notch of
flaps. Now this is exactly what you need for a short field takeoff.
It gets you over an obstacle, and it also gets you off the runway
in a short distance.

[2:52] All right, so without delay let’s move on to the short field
landing. For particular situations like this, usually single-engine
aircraft have a short and soft field approved slower approach
speed. That, coupled with your practice of hitting the mark on
landing, which we talked about earlier, are way important in this
situation, so no messing around.

[3:16] All right, so here we go. We’re going to go nuts, and I’m
not even going to brief you on what we’re going to do, so good
luck, guys. All right, so here we are coming around. I’m just
turning from base to final now, and we are at Stark’s Twin Oaks in
Oregon, just near Portland. This is a nice little add-on screen.
All right, so back to the task at hand here, just lining up with
the runway.

[3:41] Again, this will be done at 55 knots. Now, we want to get
all slowed down and nice and stable, and we’ve really got to hit
our mark in this situation. You cannot mess around. So I’m going to
put it down right on the numbers. So bringing back that airspeed
now, it looks like we are doing good on our point target. I’m right
at 55 knots; not a lot of power needed for now. I’m just bringing
it on down. Keep it coming down, keep it straight, using a little
rudder, not too much.

[4:17] All right, I’m going to be a little short, so I’m going to
add just a little power. I’ll bring it out quickly just to get over
the hump here. All right, so pull out that power quick; you need to
get it down, flared. And there we go. Now pull the elevator all the
way back and use firm braking. Don’t skid, but use firm braking and
come to a stop. The elevator helps you with the braking.

[4:42] All right, so that wasn’t even that close. This runway had
plenty of length. We didn’t necessarily need the short field
procedure, but you certainly know how to do it now in the future
when you actually do need it. So short field operations are pretty
fun and useful, so have fun practicing them.

[4:58] Now let’s move on to soft field operations, which are just
awesome. First the soft field takeoff. The setup is much the same
with the soft field takeoff, and we are going to use 10 degrees of
flaps. However, on a soft field, say grass, gravel, or dirt, it’s
easier to keep the aircraft moving a bit than to have to power out
of a stuck situation, so you just don’t want to get stuck in the
mud or something.

[5:27] So a few things will happen that I’ll warn you about in
advance. So when you’re there are a soft field, we don’t want to
have our nose dive in a rut or a hole or some other thing, so we
keep a lot of back pressure on the yoke, not only in the taxi but
also during the takeoff. So speaking about the takeoff
specifically, we want to use a lot of back pressure to get the nose
well off the ground as soon as possible, but we don’t want to drag
our tail either, so get the nose up as soon as possible and lift
off as soon as possible. That’s the trick.

[6:00] So here we are. We’re taxiing in the opposite direction, and
we are holding a lot of back pressure on the yoke to keep pressure
off the nose well, and I’ll turn it around here again. We want to
keep our speed up a little bit, and now we are going to power up,
keep it rolling here, pointed right down the runway here. So again,
we’re getting our nose well off as soon as we can, and then as soon
as we lift off we’re going to accelerate into what is called ground
effects. We’re going to accelerate a wingspan length right above
the runway.

[6:33] So here we go, lifting it off. All right, we’re up; getting
a little extra airspeed there, and now we can follow 55 knots since
we have that, and we just keep it climbing on up. And that happens
really, really fast, so you’ve got to make sure that you keep all
that back pressure. You lift off as soon as possible. You nose over
in ground effect, and you pick up whatever airspeed you need to get
up in the climb, say 55 knots for our nice Vx climb.

[7:03] And again, like before, when you need to bring the flaps up,
you are more than welcome to do so, as a clean aircraft will climb
much better. God, I just love those takeoffs. In a lot of ways I
wish I could do them every time. They are a ton of fun. They take a
lot of practice, so do your best. Get used to them, and go and have
some fun at some really quirky airfields here and there.

[7:28] So how about a soft-field landing. What’s that like? Well,
the soft-field landing is much like a short-field landing, only we
want to touch down really, really soft like, and we also want to
keep that nose well off as long as possible. So here we go, all set
up. All right, so here we are in base. I’m going to kind of show
you this different base to final type of approach because we’re
basically going to be in a turn the whole time, and this airport is
actually, let’s see here, but there it is, right above the glare
shield on the right.

[8:00] So here we go. We are in our final landing configuration,
again 55 knots throughout the whole procedure, and we’re going to
bring it right down right on this grass strip, 55 knots. We’ve got
plenty of length here. A little extra power to get us flaring a
little better. Pulled it off really soft, really soft. There we go.
We touched down. Keep the nose aloft as long as possible. That
means a lot of back pressure, and then you’re just using the rudder
to steer, as always, and that’s the best we can do.

[8:41] So we held it off as long as we could. We continue to hold
the nose well off in the taxi, and I’m just going to keep taxiing
forward up here and park next to this other airplane. So practice
these procedures. They’re a lot of fun. I really like the soft-
field operations, and you get to see some really cool places. This
scenery is just incredible, and believe me there is better than
this. Especially if you get up into Alaska, you get to do a lot of
bush flying type of opportunities with soft-field procedures, so
that’s an instance where you can really use these procedures and it
will be a lot of fun.

[9:24] So I’m just going to shut down here and pull the mixture.
And that’s it. So you’ve done it. Short-field takeoffs and landings
and soft-field takeoffs and landings. You aren’t a bush pilot quite
yet, but hey it’s a good start. You will be in no time if you go
out there and just practice. So keep practicing these, as I said,
many times, and if you can nail these you can easily do normal
landings.

[9:48] All right, guys, so that’s it for now. Throttle on,
aviators! Throttle on!

Transcription by CastingWords