"Rotate" a C 182?
I was doing some mentor flying with two different C 182 owners in their respective 182s the other day. Both of these owners are multi hundred hour pilots on their aircraft, and have owned them for some time. In both cases, a primary purpose of the mentor flying was to refresh their familiarity with soft field takeoff and landing techniques.
For both pilots, (with my briefing in advance) I started the takeoff with 15 flap*, and the control wheel held full nose up, and slowly applied power to full. As the nose lifted (pretty well immediately) so the top of the cowl just met the far end of the runway, I simply relaxed some up elevator, and held that attitude with pitch precision, while maintaining the runway centerline.
In each case, the owner's apparent surprise that you could hold the nosewheel off at all at such a slow speed, was interrupted by their further surprise that we were now flying with no further fuss, or change in the aircraft attitude at all, after a happily short ground roll.
Both of these aircraft were just repaired from "nose" damage (and these were my post maintenance check flights). I reminded the owners that though robust, the nose strut of single tricycle Cessnas is still worthy of protection from needless wear and tear, and does wear out inside. For 182's and 206/210, that strut is carrying quite a load, so the less pounding it gets during ground roll, the longer it will last.
*I have found that for all tricycle single Cessnas the use of 15 degrees of fly seems to produce the most favourable affect of downwash over the tail, to make the elevator most effective in lifting the nosewheel off at slow speed - but be careful to not bang the tail tiedown ring on the ground, that can cause expensive damage.
So; I am generally opposed to the notion that a single Cessna should be sped down a runway with no pitch input until a mystical "rotate" speed is seen on the ASI, then pulled off. I know that a few Cessna flight manuals do use the word "rotate" in this context, and I find that disappointing. Happily those flight manuals do properly state a soft field procedure. It can be followed any time - and will prevent needless wear and tear on the nosewheel.
Consider "flying" your Cessna from the moment that you smoothly open the throttle on takeoff....