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

I think it relates to experience and availability; occasionally to the type
of aircraft. We don't have too many grass strips to operate out of here in
the NE, that are also suitable for my aircraft.

For rental aircraft, there may be prohibitions agains landing on unpaved
runways.

I have a "mature" Mooney which (if the donuts are in good shape) has about
9" prop clearance and maybe 3-5" clearance at the gear doors. So, although
I'm not hesitant to operate off properly maintained grass, (and have done
so numerous times), I do have to be careful about those limits. (On the
newer Mooney's, removal of the gear doors is recommended in those
circumstances).

Probably my most challenging was 65B (Lubec, ME) which is about 2,000' with
trees at both ends, on a hot summer day. 1B2 (Katama) on Martha's Vineyard
is a popular destination and, when we lived closer, used to go there
frequently during the summer (5 minute walk from "beach parking" to the
beach).

Heck, when I was based at KASH, I used the grass adjacent to the runway
when the runway was being repaved, some years ago.
--ron