Since Grass is Legal in So Many States Now...

[FlyingMonkey]

I just got my new GoPro Hero 7, so I went out on a flight with some friends on a tour of the local grass strips.  My buddies are in a Blue/White Avid Flyer and a Yellow Legend Cub, if you see them in the videos.  You'll notice I use a lot of slips to manage descent rate (sorry that puts my noggin in the way sometimes), and on grass I always use 30° flaps unless the wind is just howling.  BTW my airplane has the small roller skate wheels/tires, and I did all these landings with the wheel pants installed. You guys with Tundra wheels have no excuses to not be landing on grass, and you are missing out on a lot of fun if you don't.  My CT can land at 90% of the places the Legend Cub can, it's a pretty good short field airplane for what it is.  

 

First up is Aerie (1GA9).  My friend with the Legend Cub owns this strip, and it's kind of our "base of operations" when our group gets together to fly.  The runway is 2000ft and very smooth and well mowed.  My landing is to the North over the trees.  The South approach is a little easier, though not as much fun.    Landing sequence starts about 1:45 into the video:

 

 

Next up is Taylor Field (GA16).  Owned by Larry Taylor, an 80 year old super-nice guy who still flies the same J3 Cub he's owned since 1974.  The runway is 2100x50ft with the preferred landing uphhill.  There is a pronounced hump in the runway right around where you would touchdown, so ideally you try to get down fast and land on the up slope of the hump.  In this landing I was a little long and landed just past the crest on the down slope, which is also fine.  What you *don't* want is to touch down on the crest of the hill, as you'll be back in the air on the backside with no energy and you'll put your gear in danger if you don't add power immediately.  Grass was in need of a mow yesterday, but not out of control.  Landing sequence starts at about 55 seconds in:

  

Third on the hit parade is  Southern Oaks (GE35).  this is the shortest field in the series, at 1400x60 feet.  But the landing is uphill and the approach is clear for a long way out, so it's actually a very easy place to land if your speed control is good.  When we landed there yesterday the owner had just fertilized, so you could smell chicken shit a mile out from the runway...   Landing sequence starts at 1:55 in the video:

Last is Sleepy Hollow (GA18).  This is a neat spot owned by the son of a very successful real estate developer who flies his Aviat Husky from there.  It's 2600ft and has runways that are parallel grass (60ft wide) and concrete (22ft wide), and an easy place to land in either direction.  In the video my buddy lands ahead of me in the grass and I land in the pavement.  I almost forgot to turn on the camera, so the landing sequence starts right as the video starts:

  

 

 

Those are the four grass strips I most commonly land at.  There are a bunch of others we go to occasionally, I will get some videos of them as we hit them going forward.  I also have takeoff videos from all these spots except for Sleepy Hollow;  if anybody wants to see those I can put them on YouTube.

 

 

[Stacy]

I've been thinking about a gopro for quite awhile. Your video's are really good. If I hadn't already made an insane purchase a month ago, I would have to buy the gopro.

[FlyingMonkey]

11 minutes ago, Stacy said:

I've been thinking about a gopro for quite awhile. Your video's are really good. If I hadn't already made an insane purchase a month ago, I would have to buy the gopro.

Let me tempt you.  GoPro now has a program where you can send them *any* digital camera, working or not, and they will take $100 off the Hero 7.  Brings the price down to $299.

[Stacy]

That is tempting. I might have to do it.

After I ordered the supercharger for the Mustang, my wife frowned on my purchase. But, it is the first time in 31 years that she questioned something I bought.

[FlyingMonkey]

10 minutes ago, Stacy said:

That is tempting. I might have to do it.

After I ordered the supercharger for the Mustang, my wife frowned on my purchase. But, it is the first time in 31 years that she questioned something I bought.

Sounds like a good woman! 

 

You can always say it will allow you to review your flights and enhance safety by letting you see any mistakes... 

[Warmi]

Yeah, keep putting them on - I really enjoyed your videos from Arizona fly in from a few years back - especially the one over the lake.

On another note , the new GoPro seems to have awesome non-software stabilization built it -the footage looks just like with these gyro-stabilized cameras.

 

 

[FlyingMonkey]

34 minutes ago, Warmi said:

Yeah, keep putting them on - I really enjoyed your videos from Arizona fly in from a few years back - especially the one over the lake.

On another note , the new GoPro seems to have awesome non-software stabilization built it -the footage looks just like with these gyro-stabilized cameras.

 

 

It is amazing.  I'm going to try attaching it to the vertical stab.  With my previous GoPro the camera shake made it a terrible image.  Hopefully this will be better.

[Stacy]

If you get that done, post a pic please. You might post a pic of your mount now, also.

TIA

BTW, I just got back into my office after selling my 32' pontoon semi-house boat. I should qualify for a camera purchase now.

[WmInce]

Nice videos, Andy!

[Ed Cesnalis]

Andy,

Find a spot in one of your videos where you have 30 degrees and a closed throttle.  Looks to me like that's what your doing on final??

Notice the horizon in your windscreen and use it to access pitch attitude and then compare to mine.  I"m coasting in with 30 and until I begin rounding out there is no horizon.  Do you see I end up much more nose down?  Maybe you have power in?

 

[Runtoeat]

Thanks for posting Andy.  You landings all looked consistent and smooth. 

[FlyingMonkey]

15 hours ago, Ed Cesnalis said:

Andy,

Find a spot in one of your videos where you have 30 degrees and a closed throttle.  Looks to me like that's what your doing on final??

Notice the horizon in your windscreen and use it to access pitch attitude and then compare to mine.  I"m coasting in with 30 and until I begin rounding out there is no horizon.  Do you see I end up much more nose down?  Maybe you have power in?

 

What is your approach speed?  The difference might be that I'm holding a slower speed, so the nose is up a little higher. 

I do sometimes "drag it in" with some power at low speed, so that once I clear obstacles I can cut the power, lower the nose, and descent faster to land as short as possible.  That could also be what you are seeing.

[Ed Cesnalis]

24 minutes ago, FlyingMonkey said:

What is your approach speed?  The difference might be that I'm holding a slower speed, so the nose is up a little higher. 

I do sometimes "drag it in" with some power at low speed, so that once I clear obstacles I can cut the power, lower the nose, and descent faster to land as short as possible.  That could also be what you are seeing.

I think you might be right.  I do like to have my nose down and my flaps loaded up.

You can see my ASI well enough to see top of white arc until round out then bottom of white arc by touchdown.  So my speed must be 55 minimum

[FlyingMonkey]

11 minutes ago, Ed Cesnalis said:

I think you might be right.  I do like to have my nose down and my flaps loaded up.

You can see my ASI well enough to see top of white arc until round out then bottom of white arc by touchdown.  So my speed must be 55 minimum

My speed on short final for these grass strips is usually 48-52kt.  That makes for a steep descent, and I want to get my speed set up early, so often I will add power to hold the speed and keep the descent rate low, then pull out the power once the runway is made and let the airplane descent to the runway.  The backup ASI is in the lower left under the EFIS, it's a little easier to read in the video than the EFIS itself.  It looks to me like my touchdown is right at about 40kt in that first video.

The downside is if the engine quits on short final I'm in the trees.  But at least I'll only be going 50kt or so.

[Ed Cesnalis]

5 minutes ago, FlyingMonkey said:

The downside is if the engine quits on short final I'm in the trees.

That's a pretty big downside.  

Interesting to note that I'm pointed down but you are probably sinking faster.

[FlyingMonkey]

16 minutes ago, Ed Cesnalis said:

That's a pretty big downside.  

Interesting to note that I'm pointed down but you are probably sinking faster.

You also don't have many trees to get past... 

If you are going to land shot over trees you either have to use my technique or come in really steep, but then you'll likely be fast and float at the bottom.  You could do it at like 45-46kt, but then you are close to the stall and you had better be really on your game at the bottom...

[Ed Cesnalis]

1 hour ago, FlyingMonkey said:

You also don't have many trees to get past... 

If you are going to land shot over trees you either have to use my technique or come in really steep, but then you'll likely be fast and float at the bottom.  You could do it at like 45-46kt, but then you are close to the stall and you had better be really on your game at the bottom...

Steep is preferable to being behind the power curve, save that till your past the obstacles.  

[AGLyme]

This is a good string as I am in the improving my landings phase.  Went up for 6x today in a breezy conditions... doing well until the last landing when my left main pulled up a bit... the cross wind did a head fake... coming from the right at touchdown and then banged left immediately thereafter...  I need the practice.

Thanks for posting guys... and yes Andy please put the other vids on youtube... appreciate it.

Andrew

[AGLyme]

Swell, another anonymous downvote... last time I complained I was labeled thin skinned.  Perhaps, but At least I’m no coward.

[FlyingMonkey]

11 hours ago, AGLyme said:

Swell, another anonymous downvote... last time I complained I was labeled thin skinned.  Perhaps, but At least I’m no coward.

I don't think there is a way to downvote and attach a name to it, so by definition every downvote is anonymous.  That's just how the software works.  Why are anonymous upvotes okay but downvotes are "cowardly"?

Why do you care if you get downvotes?  It's not like the forum is a popularity contest, or that upvotes or downvotes actually affect anything.

[okent]

It's just different to me.  From my limited perspective this is the only forum where I've seen the option to downvote anything, only "likes" or "thanks".  Bad activity get called out reported and/or to moderators and taken care of or the member gets booted. 

I "liked"  your post AGLyme

[KentWien]

I think it’s people accidentally pushing that button as they are scrolling. Flyers here are pretty friendly. 

[AGLyme]

Andy,

l am not a prude when it comes to conflict, never have been.  I built a (aerospace) company embracing the notion that anyone can disagree at any time, no matter who you are.  Historically, there is always conflict between Engineering, Production, Administration and Sales in companies... the key to any organization is to learn how to manage conflict so good things/ideas/information/solutions come out of it. 

Allowing anonymous "down-voting" with no ability for the poor downvotee to pursue an alternative view runs the risk of alienating people and effectively kicking potentially good people out of the discourse.  Really a needless button on such a small site, with a small population of CT Fliers... not for a site that is set up for information sharing purposes.  Why run the risk of embarrassing and alienating people and effectively kicking them out of the conversation(s) ? 

I hope this is a satisfactory explanation.  Happy to discuss offline if need be.

Andrew

[FlyingMonkey]

Here are the takeoff videos:

 

 

 

Here are two bonus videos, a second landing at Aerie without the slip so my head is not in the way, and a sunset cruising around flight with my buddy's Legend Cub 

 

 

 

[okent]

Love the videos!  What type of mount are you using for your iPad?  I've got a samsung S4 that I'm using Garmin Pilot on and am trying to find a spot for it.