Tigers on grass

Gort01

Gort01

Filing Flight Plan
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Gort01
Anybody out there have any experience with operating AA5B Tigers off of grass? Would love to buy one, but am curious about this.
 
Ron Levy has done it a bunch out of 3M0. He'd be a good one to ask.
 
If the grass is short and dry, and the underlying surface smooth and hard, and the runway length is reasonable for the density altitude, it's not a problem. OTOH, don't try it on 2000 feet of tall, wet grass on soft dirt with a field of tall corn at the end of the runway.




PS: He did clear the corn by horsing it up and over, but his ballistic arc ended in the soybean field on the other side of the corn.
 
Ron Levy said:
If the grass is short and dry, and the underlying surface smooth and hard, and the runway length is reasonable for the density altitude, it's not a problem. OTOH, don't try it on 2000 feet of tall, wet grass on soft dirt with a field of tall corn at the end of the runway.




PS: He did clear the corn by horsing it up and over, but his ballistic arc ended in the soybean field on the other side of the corn.
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I hate it when that happens.......:idea::idea::dunno::incazzato:

Ben.
 
Next question, anybody have comments on two mods:
1 PowerFlow Systems tuned exhaust for the AA5B and
2 The LoPresti cowl for the AA5B
Thanks for your previous input, I look forward to these comments.
 
If you get both of those mods along with the Lycon cylinder porting/flowmatching, you get a real boost in takeoff/climb performance. Leave out any one, and you're leaving a choke point in the air throughflow (induction through cylinders through exhaust), so you limit the boost significantly. However, short of the SaberTooth mod (essentially, an Aztec engine), even the power boost from those three isn't enough to turn the Tiger into a short/soft-field competitor to something like a 180 HP Maule. IOW, if the stock plane won't get 'er done, those mods won't make enough difference to matter except in what was a marginal area.
 
Ron Levy said:
Then I'd have to say your idea of a solid (I.e., smooth and hard) surface isn't the same as mine.
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Seeing as its spring and its been raining all winter I'd not advise any pilot to take any small wheeled aircraft off the hard stuff.
 
bbchien said:
Don't do it, Gort. We don't wanna read about you.
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I wonder how many pilots realize how fast an aircraft can flip over.

one second you are fully flared slow as she goes and the next you are on your back sliding along on your head.

I don't believe the Grumman lends itself well to doing that.
 
Tom-D said:
Seeing as its spring and its been raining all winter I'd not advise any pilot to take any small wheeled aircraft off the hard stuff.
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I suppose that depends on your location. Where you are in Northwestern Washington, that might be true. Here, the ground is fine -- I was just up at Bennett 1N5 a couple of weeks ago practicing my soft-field technique in my Tiger -- with wheel pants on, and no wheel pant damage or other problems.
 
bbchien said:
where's that video of the grumman landing at Gaston's....
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She took it private so it's no longer publicly available. But that landing would have resulted in a wreck no matter what the surface on which it landed. The pilot approached way too fast (obvious from the aircraft's attitude on short final), entered a porpoise, and tried to plant it, resulting in a nosewheel collapse. Any plane will do that on any surface if you do what that pilot did, not just a Grumman on grass.
 
Ron Levy said:
She took it private so it's no longer publicly available. But that landing would have resulted in a wreck no matter what the surface on which it landed. The pilot approached way too fast (obvious from the aircraft's attitude on short final), entered a porpoise, and tried to plant it, resulting in a nosewheel collapse. Any plane will do that on any surface if you do what that pilot did, not just a Grumman on grass.
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I hope you are referring to Grumman, because a PA 28 or a C-series aircraft would have survived that landing.

and any aircraft won't do that, only the ones that have a nose wheel.
 
Ron Levy said:
I suppose that depends on your location. Where you are in Northwestern Washington, that might be true. Here, the ground is fine -- I was just up at Bennett 1N5 a couple of weeks ago practicing my soft-field technique in my Tiger -- with wheel pants on, and no wheel pant damage or other problems.
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location,location,location,

I tried to mow today and got my mower stuck with flotation tires.
 
Tom-D said:
I hope you are referring to Grumman, because a PA 28 or a C-series aircraft would have survived that landing.
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Ummm.......no. I've seen plenty of Cessnas with collapsed nosewheels, as well as PA28's, and on pavement, not just turf. That pilot planted it, and given the known weakness of the nosewheel assembly/firewall interface on the light single Cessnas, the result would likely have been no different if he'd done that same landing in a 172.
 
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Ron Levy said:
She took it private so it's no longer publicly available. But that landing would have resulted in a wreck no matter what the surface on which it landed. The pilot approached way too fast (obvious from the aircraft's attitude on short final), entered a porpoise, and tried to plant it, resulting in a nosewheel collapse. Any plane will do that on any surface if you do what that pilot did, not just a Grumman on grass.
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I only have about 50 hours in type,. but my first few hours in Grummans resulted in more go-arounds as a young pilot because of poor speed control... The Tiger is slicker than your Cherokee or 172...

I didn't have any probs on a turf field but the turf I flew into and out of was a well kept, crowned field that was a great surface... not a chuckhole infested bog..
 
Tom-D said:
I hope you are referring to Grumman, because a PA 28 or a C-series aircraft would have survived that landing.
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Sure about that?

Make/Model: Cessna / 172P

THE AIRPLANE WAS NOT FLARED AND AS A RESULT IT IMPACTED THE GROUND ON THE NOSE GEAR. AFTER INITIAL GROUND CONTACT, WHICH WAS
ABOUT TWO THIRDS OF THE WAY DOWN THE RUNWAY, THE AIRPLANE BOUNCED FOR ABOUT 40 FEET BEFORE TOUCHING DOWN THE SECOND TIME. THE NOSE GEAR COLLAPSED ON THE SECOND GROUND IMPACT, THE AIRPLANE FLIPPED OVER, AND SLID TO A STOP

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/GenPDF.asp?id=FTW91LA116&rpt=fi
 
Hey guys, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it didn't look like it was bad enough to bust off the gear on a PA- or C- series.
 
Doggtyred said:
I only have about 50 hours in type,. but my first few hours in Grummans resulted in more go-arounds as a young pilot because of poor speed control... The Tiger is slicker than your Cherokee or 172...
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Yes, the Grummans are a lot less forgiving of poor speed control than PA28's or 172's. OTOH, if you control speed properly, it's actually easier to make a good "on the mains, tail low" landing and then control nosewheel touchdown in a Cheetah or Tiger than in a 172 or PA28.
 
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Tom-D said:
Hey guys, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it didn't look like it was bad enough to bust off the gear on a PA- or C- series.
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Matter of perspective, I guess. It looked pretty awful to me. Unfortunately, it's no longer publicly available for others to view and lend their perspective.
 
The nosegear is spindly and requires special attention to energy management in the roundout. The usual CessnPer operator, who is used to toleration of a wide range of touchdown speeds, has an expensive surprise coming (and hopefully not an injury).

If you do grass (and a bit shortish) in a Grumman, you need to be disciplined and sharp, and right on airspeed (for weight). You can say exactly the same for Mooney.

The amount of airmanship is the difference between:
Q: When is the airplane ready to land?
A: When it stops flying.

and

Q: When is the airplane ready to land?
A: When I arrange all the factors so that it stops flying.

There is a tremendous difference between these two. Grumman failed at our flying club because the majority of the pilots could not "get it" or didn't have the discipline to "get it" and it was replaced by another 172.
 
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bbchien said:
Grumman failed at our flying club because the majority of the pilots could not "get it" or didn't have the discipline to "get it" and it was replaced by another 172.
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and that is the basic reason the airplane wasn't more popular, when it was in production.
 
bbchien said:
The amount of airmanship is the difference between:

Q: When is the airplane ready to land?
A: When it stops flying.
and
Q: When is the airplane ready to land?
A: When I arrange all the factors so that it stops flying.
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Bruce, the absolute best description I have seen of the difference between an aviator and a plane driver. Brilliant!
 
Tom-D said:
and that is the basic reason the airplane wasn't more popular, when it was in production.
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The facts that (a) it was built by a small subsidiary of a company which had little interest in light singles; (b) the line was sold in a package with the Gulfstream jets to a company with no interest in light singles; and (c) at a time when the entire industry was starting to go into the tank, all had a lot to do with it, too.
 
Pilawt said:
The facts that (a) it was built by a small subsidiary of a company which had little interest in light singles; (b) the line was sold in a package with the Gulfstream jets to a company with no interest in light singles; and (c) at a time when the entire industry was starting to go into the tank, all had a lot to do with it, too.
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True, but if it had been the hot cake it touted to be, the story would have been different.

It suffered the same syndrome as the G0-300, not flown properly, and developed a hard to fly reputation. Sales weren't that great, because reputation is every thing, so it was bundled with a good product and dumped.
 
Tom-D said:
True, but if had been the hot cake it touted to be, the story would have been different.

It suffered the same syndrome as the G0-300, not flown properly, and developed a hard to fly reputation. Sales weren't that great, because reputation is every thing, so it was bundled with a good product and dumped.
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I don't remember the Tiger as being hard to fly at all. It was my favorite little airplane for awhile. I think I had about 150 hours when I got checked out in one and almost all of my previous experience had been in Cessnas. Of course I probably did a better job with them then than I would today...
 
Everskyward said:
I don't remember the Tiger as being hard to fly at all. It was my favorite little airplane for awhile. I think I had about 150 hours when I got checked out in one and almost all of my previous experience had been in Cessnas. Of course I probably did a better job with them then than I would today...
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That's all true, but flight schools hated them because it requires more time to solo, back in the day when most students could solo a C-150 in 5-10 hours it required twice that to solo the AA series.

Reputation is every thing in the success of any aircraft company, Grumman never really got a good start in the training market because of the preconceived difficulty in airspeed management.
 
I don't think flight schools were a big buyer of Tigers.

Tom-D said:
That's all true, but flight schools hated them because it requires more time to solo, back in the day when most students could solo a C-150 in 5-10 hours it required twice that to solo the AA series.

Reputation is every thing in the success of any aircraft company, Grumman never really got a good start in the training market because of the preconceived difficulty in airspeed management.
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Tom-D said:
That's all true, but flight schools hated them because it requires more time to solo, back in the day when most students could solo a C-150 in 5-10 hours it required twice that to solo the AA series.
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Tom's statements are incorrect. The problems flight schools had in the early days involved instructors who didn't know how to fly anything that didn't fly like a Cessna 150. At schools with Grumman fleets like Hortman Aviation and what used to be Fletcher Aviation in Houston, where the instructors were properly trained to fly and teach in AA-1x's, students trained in AA-1x aircraft solo at about the same rates as students in more common trainers.
 
I love Tigers. I just can't convince the flying club to stick to it. Old dogs don't wanna learn.
 
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