First actual soft field landing and takeoff today

juan valdez

juan valdez

Well-Known Member
Landed at RWJ today, east of Houston, and they ahve a grass strip. Instructor asked if I wanted to use it and I told him I had never done an actual soft field before. He was all for it after I said that. Two takeoffs and a landing.

Pretty neat experience and definitely different than just practicing on an actual runway. Biggest difference I noticed was A:harder to turn on the grass and B I thought I was going to hit hard but I guess with it being grass it cushions it pretty well.

Seems like it would be pretty cool to have a house there that has a hangar and just be able to taxi out. Only other place I've seen that before was Spruce Creek.

Between landing on the 40ft wide paved runway and a grass strip today, I would say I had a good flight! :bandit:
 
:nana2: There's nothing like a turf runway. Congrats and kudos to your instructor. I've come across many flight schools that won't allow landing on turf :crazy:.
 
Heh. Good for you! Fun ain't it?

My first actual soft field landing was on my PPL checkride during the engine-out procedure.
 
escapepilot said:
:nana2: There's nothing like a turf runway. Congrats and kudos to your instructor. I've come across many flight schools that won't allow landing on turf :crazy:.
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He told me on our first flight that we would be going there for the narrow runway. That was a couple months back but we finally got over there. I couldn't pass up the chance since we were already there.

killbilly said:
Heh. Good for you! Fun ain't it?

My first actual soft field landing was on my PPL checkride during the engine-out procedure.
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:panic: Talk about putting what you learn into practice.
 
Grass is great.

Now wait until you see a REAL soft field, as in, wet grass.

Those poor 152 sink into the ground if you leave them parked for too long, and it takes full power and some rocking to break away. lol
 
There was a cool little grass strip up north of Columbus, 5E9 I think, that I had the opportunity to fly to a few times. I loved it! Surprisingly, I've seen an A36 and a couple of Mooneys up there...
 
tlewis95 said:
Grass is great.

Now wait until you see a REAL soft field, as in, wet grass.
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Exactly. I've got some pretty extensive grass field experience and even still, I would be hard pressed to demonstrate a 'soft field' landing technique on a hard surface runway. That fact distrubed me quite a bit until I had a discussion about it with CFI buddy.

I said, I know exactly how to land on grass but frankly, what I do on grass is pretty much exactly what I would do on asphalt so if you asked me demonstrate one on asphalt, I don't know what I'd do differently. He said well your grass experience is on hard packed grass. I said yeah, so? He said what would you do if you had to land on grass that had standing puddles and was muddy with ruts? I said if I was in a 172 with wheel pants, I'd go somewhere else, maybe if I was in a supercub with balloons, I'd land but I'd 3-point it nice and slow and as soft as possible but even then I'd probably go someplace else if I had the option. He said there you go, you know how to do soft fields.

That's when it dawned on me. The reason I had no idea how do soft field landings is because what most CFI's tell you is a 'soft field' isn't really a soft field at all. Hard packed grass is certainly different than pavement and therefore ought to be practiced, but it ain't really no soft field. Real live soft fields are fields you're probably not going to land on unless your forced to. And whole idea is to get it on the ground and get it to a stop while keeping the dirty side down. Once I understood that difference, being able to demonstrate them became much easier.
 
tlewis95 said:
Grass is great.

Now wait until you see a REAL soft field, as in, wet grass.

Those poor 152 sink into the ground if you leave them parked for too long, and it takes full power and some rocking to break away. lol
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Yeah as soon as we taxied onto the strip we checked the tires while taxiing to make sure they weren't wet. Neither one of us could remember if it had rained recently.
I got the impression that we wouldnt have done it if it had been soaked.
 
Joe Gremlin said:
That's when it dawned on me. The reason I had no idea how do soft field landings is because what most CFI's tell you is a 'soft field' isn't really a soft field at all. Hard packed grass is certainly different than pavement and therefore ought to be practiced, but it ain't really no soft field. Real live soft fields are fields you're probably not going to land on unless your forced to. And whole idea is to get it on the ground and get it to a stop while keeping the dirty side down. Once I understood that difference, being able to demonstrate them became much easier.
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:yeahthat:

Just because it is grass, doesn't mean that it is "soft."
 
Very true on that one tlewis. The first thing I said when I performed my first actual soft field landing was, 'holy crap, what about this was supposed be soft?' haha. Demonstrated one to a couple of my students back when I was a CFI. They all thought is was the coolest thing in the world. Think they were really taken aback that the aircraft would actually land and takeoff on something other than an asphalt runway. :)
 
I've got over 1000 grass landings, nothing beats it. I love hearing the sound of my mains meeting the grass underneath me.


It's a thrill every time.
 
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