I did my first 2 flights at Manchester, my first solo at Chester and then about 25 hours at Barton - after which I was pretty accustomed to grass, mostly bumpy, muddy etc.
A few years later I finished my PPL at Luton but doing circuits at Cambridge. On one occasion at Cambridge a Herc was on the runway and the controller asked me to switch to 23 grass, which I did. My instructor, who must have been inattentive for a moment, suddenly looked ahead and realised I was 10 feet short of the grass not the hard stuff and went ballistic that I was going to put his Cherokee on that stuff.
Nethertheless I did a perfect touch and go and went back to 23 main. It seemed that Shaun's only real problem was getting his aeroplane dirty - but I was not under any circumstances apart from engine failure, to go near grass again.
Now I fly off tarmac at Fairoaks and park on the grass, so the aeroplanes still get muddy.
In also fly into Sandown and Goodwood and it never occurred to me that I was going on to the dreaded grass, where I hadn't ventured for years, and apart from the absence of yellow lines to follow, was no deal at all. Certainly our club has no problems about grass at all, as the above are two pretty popular destinations.
I completely fail to see what anybody has against grass ... if it's short or there are adjacent obstacles, take the necessary precautions and adjust your "approach" accordingly.
It seems prety damn silly to me however that we all do lots of PFLs - universally onto grass - but it seesm that many, many people never get to find out what the stuff is like should they be forced to venture onto it. Why doesn't the syllabus insist on some "real" pfls onto a short grass strip as part of the training ?
Seems a bit brighter than risking the 500 foot rule all the time.
