"Curtis L. Olson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > Major A writes: > > > > > I've never had the chance to use a grass runway -- how does it feel as > > > you get close to takeoff speed? We need to start modelling the bumps > > > and jolts in FlightGear. > > > > I've taken off one (in the back seat, though), it's surprisingly > > smooth. I think it's the same effect as when you ride over a pothole > > on a bicycle -- the faster you go, the smaller the bump. The wheel > > simply has less time to sink into the hole. Also, by the time you > > reach take-off speed, load on the undercarriage is fairly small > > anyway. > > I've flown into and out of grass runways as a passenger. I think the > sensation depends very much on the quality of the runway. One runway > we flew off of was quite nice, hard packed and pretty smooth. One > runway we landed at was, well, hard to call a runway. It was an area
The company I've been working for lately operates a farm in the Alagash area of Maine (far north) and there's a grass strip there. The first time I landed on it as a passenger was just after the second half of it's length had been rolled. The thing I remember most is the sensation of dropping down on something so short, as the pilot didn't trust half of the runway just done, we came down on the far half of the field. To me it really looked like we were going to get planted like a lawn dart. This was in a single engine Tiger, my boss now lands a Cougar twin on there regularly now. He had an old cutlass convertable at the farm and ran it up to 90mph on the newly rolled portion to see what it was like. It passed the test, so the departure was...ummm...just a little less stressful. Best, Jim _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
