Looking To The Sky

Short and Soft Field Takeoffs

I went flying yesterday after work over to Aurora (UAO) with my instructor.  He had me learn about soft and short field takeoffs.

Rick showed me a short field takeoff on Monday, but I never had a chance to perform it myself.  This flight we started my flying with this.

Short Field Takeoff

The idea is to get to flying speed in the shortest distance.  To do this, we take as much runway as possible, set flaps to 10 degrees, apply the brakes, add full power, release brakes when full power is reached, at our rollout speed, VR,begin climbing and increase our speed to best angle of climb, VX.  Once clear of all obsticles, lower the nose slightly and accelerate to best rate of climb, VY.  With postive rate of climb established, lower the flaps and continue flying as normal.

I was able to do this my first attempt and was quite excited.  Not that it was perfect, but we did end up taking off!

After taking off from Twin Oaks, we flew  over to UAO.  Practiced some landings and another short field takeoff and we were then back off to Twin Oaks.

I did a few landings at Twin Oaks and did a soft field takeoff.

Soft FIeld Takeoff

The idea of a soft field takeoff is a takeoff when on grass or other fields that are not cement or asfault.  To perform a soft field takeoff, do the following:  after making a departure call, begin lining up with the runway (keeping in mind not to stop as the plane could get stuck on the turain), add 10 degrees of flaps, pull back on the control wheel, add full power.  The nose will want to leave the ground and as this occurs, begin flying in ground effect until our best rate of climb speed, VY,  is achieved, once this occurs, begin to pull back on the control wheel and climb.  Once a postiive rate of climb is extablished, retract the flaps.

Easy peasy.  Well, for the most part, it takes practice to get it down completely, however it is quite a lot of fun to do these.

After the takeoffs, I ended the lesson with a successful landing at Twin Oaks.

Logs:

Flight Time: 1.4 Hours
Landings: 7

Categories: Private Pilot Completion

Tags: Cessna 172, flying, K7S3, KUAO, N734KU, Short Field Takeoff, Soft Field Takeoff, Training

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