Originally Posted by
indyaachen
Hi all,
I've recently changed my ATO and now will be trained either Grob or Robin. I already had a flight in Robin, where the instructor showed me something that I've not done before: holding the stick in back position form the start on the runway.
I have about 20 hours on Robins post-PPL (I learnt in Cessna 152) and the stick back instruction surprised me at first too...but all experienced Robin instructors say it: stick full back always whilst taxing and at the beginning of the take-off roll, easing as speed builds to avoid rotating too early. As well as taking load off the nosewheel, the DR400/180 in particular has only a small clearance between propeller and the ground, so you need to do everything possible to avoid a propeller strike, particularly on grass runways where a bump in the wrong direction could be very bad news. I didn't fully believe this until someone way more experienced than me did exactly that... a prop strike in a DR400/180 on a grass strip...now I'm absolutely paranoid about remembering to keep that stick back!!...