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Soft grass strip

R

Ron B.

Well Known Member
My last post ( Oil Door) brought up a question. My grass strip is soft as usual and I'm planning a Sun N Fun departure in three weeks. I know it will still be soft as it was last year. I know I can get the RV-10 off, light, question is how hard is this on the aircraft. Last year I could feel the drag and once it lifted off the acceleration was tremendous. The strip is very smooth and the take off left no visible ruts, I'm sure if someone walked behind they could have seen the tracks but nothing was visible from the air or once I returned.
How hard is this on the RV-10?
Ron
 
No mud, I'm sure that there will be some dirt splashing arround but no build up. It doesn't cut thru the grass, just some mud squeezes up thru the sod .
Thanks Ron
 
Use Flap20 max. As you accelerate get the nose up, and she will get off quite short even on wet strips.

How long is your strip though?
 
soft strip

FWIW, I can't imagine that it would be any harder on the airplane than landing on a hard suface and stopping as quickly as possible with heavy brake use. Of course that may be something that you never do, but I think you will be fine. Just my very uneducated and inexperienced opinion though.
 
Light Nose...

Ron B. said:
My last post ( Oil Door) brought up a question. My grass strip is soft as usual and I'm planning a Sun N Fun departure in three weeks. I know it will still be soft as it was last year. I know I can get the RV-10 off, light, question is how hard is this on the aircraft. Last year I could feel the drag and once it lifted off the acceleration was tremendous. The strip is very smooth and the take off left no visible ruts, I'm sure if someone walked behind they could have seen the tracks but nothing was visible from the air or once I returned.
How hard is this on the RV-10?
Ron
Click to expand...

Ron,

Not hard on the airplane, but wheel pant brackets could be challenged. I installed chromemoly steel brackets on my HR2 and my friends 10 (mains) for strength and they work very well. Lower your mains tire pressure to 25 which helps. My 1800' strip is very soft when wet as well. I operated my friend's RV-10 for several months and found the best technique was to:
1. Use 10 degrees flaps,
2. Full throttle/Full aft stick until nosewheel airborne.
3. Hold nose high attitude until airborne in ground effect.
4. Accelerate raise flaps and climb on speed. (standard soft field takeoff) :)

Note: a light RV10 will nearly "levitate" airborne to amazing nose high initial rates of climb.

V/R
Smokey

PS: My strip is 10NM north of SNF, dust me off when you go by...
 
Last edited:
smokyray said:
2. Full throttle/Full aft stick until nosewheel airborne.
Click to expand...
I agree but be careful. It depends on how you are loaded.
I was flying a Young Eagles event off a grass strip with 45-50 gal of gas and 3 kids with me and I over rotated trying to pull it off the grass. I never detected that I actually got the tail into the grass but when I landed I sure got a razzzing. They braught me a small hand full of grass from my tail tie down eye.
You can over rotate under some circumstances.

I was the first takeoff of the day and after me, everyone was watching their ground run and rotation. The strip was 2600 ft. One Cessna 175 with a heavy pilot would take 1500 to 2000 feet of it to get off and out of ground effect. His second and later flights, he only took 2 kids per flight.
 
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