On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:06:07 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"
wrote:

How often do you get to land or take off from something other than a
paved runway? The current books don't give it much thought and I
suspect because the writers are so new at this aviation thing, they
have little or no experience on anything but paved runways.
Part of the reason for this post was the resistance to more than a few
to not land on a great 2000' grass strip that has an Interstate on one
end, and trees on the other. I have no idea why they are afraid to
land on this strip. There are at least three grass strips of 2000'
length in this area and some that are longer (one is about 4000').
What has your experience been? I have no idea how much time I have
operating off strips of 1200' or less, grass, gravel, sand, etc and no
problems. Must be at least thousands of them, both in terms of take
off and landings as well as hours.
Ol S&B


there is nothing quite so sweet as operating a Tailwind from a grass
green runway 100 metres shorter than the manual says you can.
(which I do all the time)

best story re unmade strips is mike flying a tosser as pax in a Cessna
172. they were doing a cross country up north.
mike looks out the window and says to himself 'bugger it that'll do'
which gets picked up over the intercom.
mike pulls off the throttle, applies heat and lowers landing stages of
flaps and wheels it around for an approach to ....nothing.
tosser wannabe works himself up into an appoplexic lather at the
prospect of there being no runway ahead, just ...nothing.
mike pops it in with out any trouble and shuts down to a tosser with
eyes like saucers.
'you cant do that!'
'oh dont worry you dont have to ...back in a mo' '
mike walks to the end of the wing and has a ****.

back in the aircraft the tosser gets himself all worked up at the
prospect of a takeoff ...on nothing.

later mike tells us of all the commotion. it was a perfectly level
grassy area as a flat as a billiard table ...and I needed a ****.


I would suggest that students are taken for a landing in an aluminium
aircraft on a gravel runway. the din can take you by surprise.
but other than that these people are so limited by their fears and
lack of real experience that they are a worry. totally needless
apprehension.

Stealth Pilot