Midfield Takeoffs

[idahoflier]

Finally, a question. How many of you practice stalls? Or other primary training maneuvers?

I generally practice stalls, steep turns and maneuvers at MCA at least once a month. Sometimes I'll do the commercial maneuvers...

 

[mwagg737]

I love threads like this. They can be great learning tools.

In the airlines, it's all about risk mitigation. in my personal flying, I've tried to apply a vast majority of what I do at the airlines.

Intersection takeoffs are not a big deal, but you have to leave a margin. In the case of my airline, we must have at least 2000 feet remaining after a Max effort stop (RTO)

Clearly in a single, there is no balanced field, but when I was in a single, I would use the 70/50 rule. This left a pretty good margin of error.



Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I've never flown a Warrior. Are you saying they can't safely use a 1500' runway? That seems odd for a trainer.

The OP later stated that they cleared the trees by less than a wingspan. It's more about the obstacles than the runway length. But yeah, while most trainers will get off the ground in under 1500', you've thrown away most of your margin. With those trees present, in an engine failure scenario that's the difference between walking away and dying.

It's worth it once, to drive the lesson home... Not in regular practice.

 

[woodchucker]

Maybe I need a poll, but are the same pilots who shy away from T&Gs the same pilots that shy away from basic PPL maneuvers?

Would be fun to create a Venn Diagram. Right now I’m in the circle for T&Gs but no overlap with the maneuvers. I need to fix that.

 

[Lindberg]

At a weight roughly corresponding to two people and a density altitude of 3000', a warrior takes about 1000' ground roll with the short field flaps in.
Get it up to gross weight, higher DAs, grass runways, etc... you can easily exceed 1500'

Skyhawks aren't much different. I used to go into a short 1700 strip for Navion flyins with the club Skyhawk. It would take a good short field technique to get out of there in the 172. The Navions were all off at midfield

Book numbers fke the 172 are closer to 700' at sea level max gross. But that doesn't account for skill or technique. I doubt the DA in Oklahoma has been very high the past few days.

 

[OkieFlyer]

Book numbers fke the 172 are closer to 700' at sea level max gross. But that doesn't account for skill or technique. I doubt the DA in Oklahoma has been very high the past few days.

To be fair, it was a nice and cold that day. Performance should be as good as can be expected. That said, I bet he rolled a good 1200' before he milked it off the ground. Hard to say for sure from my vantage point, but it looked sketchy enough to cause me concern.

Maybe I need a poll, but are the same pilots who shy away from T&Gs the same pilots that shy away from basic PPL maneuvers?

Would be fun to create a Venn Diagram. Right now I’m in the circle for T&Gs but no overlap with the maneuvers. I need to fix that.

IMO, T&Gs are a time saver, not a training maneuver in itself beyond allowing you to practice more takeoffs and landings in a given amount of time. Some have said it's training for go-arounds, but unless some of you guys clean up and reconfigure before you initiate a go-around, I don't see it as a useful training for that. I have no problem doing them personally, but only to keep from spending a bunch of useless time on the ground.

 

[Dave Theisen]

To be fair, it was a nice and cold that day. Performance should be as good as can be expected. That said, I bet he rolled a good 1200' before he milked it off the ground. Hard to say for sure from my vantage point, but it looked sketchy enough to cause me concern.

The more important question, did they try it a second time?

 

[OkieFlyer]

The more important question, did they try it a second time?

Negative. Perhaps that was the lesson.

 

[birdus]

I still "eat dirt" with my tail wheel when departing my home airport - 5002' long and I'm off by the 500' stripes. Departure end is a 292' drop to salt water, which is part of my decision process.

You could just land on one of the bridges!

 

[FlySince9]

You could just land on one of the bridges!

I know this guy... He was my flight instructor in 1974 and he and my 1st wife are living happily ever after in LI NY...But that's another story...

The Day A Plane Landed On The George Washington Bridge





Philip Ippolito and passenger Joseph Brennan Jr. made an emergency landing on the George Washington Bridge, December 26, 1965. photo: Life Magazine

Ippolito had rented a 34 foot wide Aeronca Champion single prop plane for $10 per hour for two hours from Ramapo Valley Airport in Spring Valley, NY. He planned on a morning joy ride to visit a former flight instructor friend in Red Bank, NJ. Along with Ippolito was a friend, passenger, Joseph F. Brennan Jr., 39. The pair departed from Spring Valley at 9 a.m.


About 20 minutes into the flight at an altitude of 3,100 feet over Manhattan, the engine began to falter. Ippolito kept trying to revive the engine but it was not working. With the plane losing altitude rapidly and the engine sputtering, Ippolito looked over the icy Hudson River and thought of trying to make a water landing. He asked Brennan if he could swim to which Brennan replied, “Not a stroke.”


Ippolito quickly thought about his options on where to make an emergency landing. The New Jersey Meadowlands, which Ippolito thought would be too soft and swampy from recent rain and the George Washington Bridge looming a couple of miles ahead to the north with relatively light traffic. With no time to lose, Ippolito turned the plane around and headed for the bridge.


Philip Ippolito weaves through the George Washington Bridge’s suspension cables towards New Jersey – photo: New York Times

As the plane approached the bridge, the engine had completely conked out. Battling wind gusts of up to 28 miles per hour, Ippolito banked the plane to the left, weaving it successfully through the bridge’s suspension cables, each 89 feet apart, and headed towards New Jersey as he descended to the bridge’s roadway. Ippolito made his way towards the two unused lanes of the bridge’s center roadway where a small divider was set up to separate east and westbound traffic.


Ippolito glided in at 90 miles per hour and as he touched down the plane’s wingtip barely clipped a tanker truck which ruined what would have been a perfect landing. The impact with the truck spun the plane around and forced the nose to grind into the roadway. As the plane came to a halt a couple of hundred feet later, the windshield shattered, the propeller bent and pieces of the wing and struts were scattered along the road.


The driver of the tanker truck Woodrow Leone told the New York Times, “I was driving along about 40 when I happened to glance in my side view mirror and I saw this plane coming up on me from the left. It was a funny feeling I didn’t know what to think or do.”

Plane lands on George Washington Bridge. photo: Life Magazine


Emerging from the plane, Ippolito had bruises all over his body and Brennan lost a tooth and had a deep gash on his chin. Other than that, there were no other injuries and both men were released from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital the following day.


Maybe the most incredible thing about the entire incident is that after the plane crashed, traffic kept moving.


Drivers on the bridge who witnessed the landing slammed their cars to a halt to stare in disbelief. But as jaded as New Yorkers are, drivers quickly resumed their trips. When the the Port Authority police arrived they kept traffic flowing as they told rubberneckers to move on, there’s nothing to see here!


In 1967 the Federal Aviation Administration concluded their investigation of the crash and charged that Ippolito had failed to check the fuel tank cap which came off during the flight causing the plane to lose fuel and the engine to sputter. The F.A.A. claimed that when Ippolito landed he was not in an emergency situation, implying the entire episode was a stunt! Elizabeth Bowers, the F.A.A. hearing officer, concluded Ippolito could have made a safe landing at Teterboro Airport five miles away instead of the George Washington Bridge, which was not an appropriate place to make an emergency landing.

Ippolito’s pilot license was suspended for six months. Upon appeal in April 1968 Ippolito was vindicated and his suspension was overturned

 

[birdus]

28 mph winds, he flew between the cables, and traffic kept moving! Wow!

The big advantage to landing on one of the Narrows Bridges would be that traffic would be moving in only one direction, now that there are two bridges instead of just the single old one. And of course, landing on the original ("Galloping Gertie") when it was windy would've been particularly tricky.

I know this guy... He was my flight instructor in 1974 and he and my 1st wife are living happily ever after in LI NY...But that's another story...

The Day A Plane Landed On The George Washington Bridge





Philip Ippolito and passenger Joseph Brennan Jr. made an emergency landing on the George Washington Bridge, December 26, 1965. photo: Life Magazine

Ippolito had rented a 34 foot wide Aeronca Champion single prop plane for $10 per hour for two hours from Ramapo Valley Airport in Spring Valley, NY. He planned on a morning joy ride to visit a former flight instructor friend in Red Bank, NJ. Along with Ippolito was a friend, passenger, Joseph F. Brennan Jr., 39. The pair departed from Spring Valley at 9 a.m.


About 20 minutes into the flight at an altitude of 3,100 feet over Manhattan, the engine began to falter. Ippolito kept trying to revive the engine but it was not working. With the plane losing altitude rapidly and the engine sputtering, Ippolito looked over the icy Hudson River and thought of trying to make a water landing. He asked Brennan if he could swim to which Brennan replied, “Not a stroke.”


Ippolito quickly thought about his options on where to make an emergency landing. The New Jersey Meadowlands, which Ippolito thought would be too soft and swampy from recent rain and the George Washington Bridge looming a couple of miles ahead to the north with relatively light traffic. With no time to lose, Ippolito turned the plane around and headed for the bridge.


Philip Ippolito weaves through the George Washington Bridge’s suspension cables towards New Jersey – photo: New York Times

As the plane approached the bridge, the engine had completely conked out. Battling wind gusts of up to 28 miles per hour, Ippolito banked the plane to the left, weaving it successfully through the bridge’s suspension cables, each 89 feet apart, and headed towards New Jersey as he descended to the bridge’s roadway. Ippolito made his way towards the two unused lanes of the bridge’s center roadway where a small divider was set up to separate east and westbound traffic.


Ippolito glided in at 90 miles per hour and as he touched down the plane’s wingtip barely clipped a tanker truck which ruined what would have been a perfect landing. The impact with the truck spun the plane around and forced the nose to grind into the roadway. As the plane came to a halt a couple of hundred feet later, the windshield shattered, the propeller bent and pieces of the wing and struts were scattered along the road.


The driver of the tanker truck Woodrow Leone told the New York Times, “I was driving along about 40 when I happened to glance in my side view mirror and I saw this plane coming up on me from the left. It was a funny feeling I didn’t know what to think or do.”

Plane lands on George Washington Bridge. photo: Life Magazine


Emerging from the plane, Ippolito had bruises all over his body and Brennan lost a tooth and had a deep gash on his chin. Other than that, there were no other injuries and both men were released from Columbia Presbyterian Hospital the following day.


Maybe the most incredible thing about the entire incident is that after the plane crashed, traffic kept moving.


Drivers on the bridge who witnessed the landing slammed their cars to a halt to stare in disbelief. But as jaded as New Yorkers are, drivers quickly resumed their trips. When the the Port Authority police arrived they kept traffic flowing as they told rubberneckers to move on, there’s nothing to see here!


In 1967 the Federal Aviation Administration concluded their investigation of the crash and charged that Ippolito had failed to check the fuel tank cap which came off during the flight causing the plane to lose fuel and the engine to sputter. The F.A.A. claimed that when Ippolito landed he was not in an emergency situation, implying the entire episode was a stunt! Elizabeth Bowers, the F.A.A. hearing officer, concluded Ippolito could have made a safe landing at Teterboro Airport five miles away instead of the George Washington Bridge, which was not an appropriate place to make an emergency landing.

Ippolito’s pilot license was suspended for six months. Upon appeal in April 1968 Ippolito was vindicated and his suspension was overturned

 

[Cooter]

Moments ago, one of the nearby university trainers landed at my local field, as they often do. They generally fly Piper Warriors, and they use our sleepy field for practice often.

Today, the trainee landed normally and came to a complete stop pretty much dead on the middle of the runway. They generally do a U-turn and taxi back for another go, but this time they throttled up and launched from midfield with only 1500 feet of asphalt in front of them, out of an available 3000'.

It's cold today, and it's flat here, so that is enough runway for a lightly loaded Warrior doing a max performance takeoff, but it struck me as a fairly dumb thing to do. I've done it more than once on the 5000' runway where I trained and could land and still have 3500-4000 of runway, but I can't say I've ever intentionally left myself only 1500' of runway to use from a dead stop. That's not much room for error, especially for a bird that's not exactly a short field performance machine. Anyway, I'm not really a "by the book" kind of guy, but it seems irresponsible to me for a flight school to allow that. But heck, no harm no foul, I guess.

What say you?

There may have been a specific learning objective and the instructor considered that to be the best means of teaching it.
Otherwise, making those decisions is what being a PIC is all about.

 

[Mike Blackburn]

My Sling will lift off at MAUW at 7000ft DA in 1150ft. My home field is 3000ft, and I sometimes operate into an 11000ft field. I still take the full length whenever it’s available and if for some reason it isn’t I’ll be doing a short field takeoff. That’s just how I risk mitigate. Sometimes I’m at circuit altitude as I cross the far threshold. I can live with that

Although I do sometimes have philosophical discussions with myself that go along the lines of “I’ll be happy to operate into and out of a 2000ft strip, but not happy to only have 2000ft of a 3500ft strip available to me... weird.”


I had an interesting discussion about intersection takeoffs with an airliner pilot - for them it’s perfectly acceptable to use an intersection provided the balanced field length remaining is ok... but that’s because they’re going to fly whatever happens after V1