Help with grass landings please

[seanbr0wn]

Hello to all

Could anybody please explain the best technique for a grass landing please ? I am looking to fly into Barton and their grass runway is very short and doesnt look too healthy at the best of times !!
Please cover wet / long grass (uncut) runways and other bad properties.

Many thanks

Sean :ok:

[bluskis]

As nobody else has answered, here goes.

There is a safety leaflet on the subject, probably obtainable on the AIS website.

Probably better if you do your first landing on grass with someone who has done it before, the noise can be a little perturbing, and depending on the horse you are flying, so can the bucking.

[DB6]

There isn't a technique for landing on grass as such, you would use short and/or soft field landing techniques which vary with aircraft but basically involve approaching at a lower than normal speed with all the flap you've got, on the back of the drag curve, and carrying power all the way to touchdown. On touchdown, if it's not a soft field, reasonably heavy braking can be applied with the weight off the nosewheel (unless it's a taildragger). If it's a soft field then it will slow you down anyway and the thing then is to keep power on to avoid getting bogged down - again with the nosewheel held off as much as possible, until you reach firmer ground. With long or wet grass any braking action will be reduced and it's very easy to skid so cadence braking (dabbing the brakes) can be used - the safety sense leaflet does deal with it in some detail and gives recommended factors for increasing LDA etc. As mentioned already the thing you may not expect will be the amount of creaking and banging from the aircraft which is not doing it any harm but you won't normally experience on smooth tarmac.
If you have a choice go when there's a good headwind as that will make things much easier. Good fun, grass strips; enjoy them.:ok:

[Heli-Ice]

Line up on final, extend flaps, reduce pwr, descend, land when ready. :-) DB6 describes this very well.

Landing on wet grass is almost like landing on ice, it is very slippery but no problem at all. I wouldn't recommend that you try landing in very tall grass, it can lead to a lot of troubles.

Another thing to consider is the animals that to eat the grass, sometimes they stand on the grass strip looking plain stupid.
:}

Heli-Ice

[MackMeeter]

I instruct at an airfield with the luxury of grass and tarmac landing strips so can get the best of both worlds....

Aeroplanes "land" just the same on grass as tarmac but as the previous posts say the techniques on final approach can vary - it depends on the condition of the grass and it's length, all the stuff we learned way way ago in performance. Grass however is more forgiving in a cross wind as the students who just will not get the nose straight in the roundout and flare like the fact that the aeroplane skids sideways much easier and lets them off a crap approach - something they come a cropper a when trying the same on "nasty" tarmac. True also that wet grass is like landing on an ice rink - be very clear in using gentle braking, any departure to the side is almost unrecoverable since our steeds handle like drunk supermarket trollies at the best of times. Same goes for mud too and keep the power on during the roll out otherwise it can get embarrassing when you sink up to the struts.

Short field techniques are very good though I wouldn't say they always must be used on grass - once again it depends on the length and condition of the strip. Look in the POH to find the correct speeds (eg C150 is 55kts I believe with full flap for short field approach and they're fab fun too in these!!) but you must be very active on the throttle - since you have almost nae airspeed (even more so in a good head wind) and very draggy, you must not let the IAS drop below that fig. As soon as you cut the power the chariot will land whether you like it or not so don't until you want those tyres to touch terra firma.

The landing roll however is much different to tarmac - be prepared to be bounced about a bit even on the most billard-table like of runways. Any bounces on the roll (if not huge) due to un-eveness can easily be controlled in the ususal manner. Taxying across them can be interesing when they've ben rutted - think of a Dalek going across a ploughed field and you have the picture.

Finally, if you're not happy, bin it and go around!! :ok: