Old dog learns new trick on grass

[Frank Smidler]

My RV-6 has now spent it's first winter based on a grass strip in southern Wisconsin. Even with a mild winter and very little snow I could not fly from mid December until last week when I got in a couple flights on the still mostly frozen field. Today, after work, I went out for another short flight. I should mention that I still have my wheel pants on as I did not intend to land in any snow conditions. The 4" of snow from last Friday had melted over the warm weekend. Today's high was around 45F so I checked the field on foot to see if it was solid, which it was. Taxing was not an issue and neither was the takeoff. The ground felt good.

After a short 20 min flight I came in for a landing and this is when I learned a new lesson. Touch down was normal as was the roll out until I started to slow down. I applied the brakes and as I slowed it felt immediately like I rolled into a real soft area on the runway. I had to give it 1800 rpms just to keep moving at a walking speed. After a short distance it seemed to get better, I pulled power some and turned around, being careful to taxi along the high side of the runway. After tucking the plane into the hanger I walked the runway sure that I would find huge ruts that I would have to fix. To my surprise there were no ruts. What I did find was bare streaks were the grass was stripped off the surface. The top of the ground was thawed to only a shallow depth over a still frozen substrate. When I applied brakes in my normal semi-aggressive manner (I like to keep my landings short) the tires gripped the grass but the grass did not grip the ground resulting in the grass stripping off and clumping up in front of the tire. What felt like soft ground that I was afraid my plane was sinking into was actually the accumulation of grass under the wheel pants. I have never experienced anything like this before. Lesson learned is not to be aggressive with brakes on thawing grass runways and maybe even use a light pumping action.

[hendrik]

Same can happen in summer, too. Firm ground, wet grass, and you're there.

[NickAir]

You may have thought of this already: Try no brakes until below 40, flaps up and lift has transferred to the wheels. Then easy on the brakes until slow. Summer mornings with dew on the grass can cause this too.

[JonJay]

Originally Posted by Frank Smidler

When I applied brakes in my normal semi-aggressive manner (I like to keep my landings short) .

Why? There is no reason not to use the runway available to you and save the wear and tear on your machine. Our airpark has 2000' paved runway with 50+ft trees on both ends. Even with an RV, very little braking is required to make my house at 1500'. I just changed my brakes at 450 hours on my 6 and the brakes on my Bucker have 450 hours on them and at least 75% more to go.
My neighbor and I where discussing this last weekend. We both grew up in antique tail wheel machines, Aeronca and Taylorcraft, with heel brakes, and very little of that. You simply didn't use the brakes as for the most part, they where not there to use anyway. Good habits die hard?
Thanks for sharing your experience, now get off those brakes and let that machine roll out! IMHO.