Trip report: flying to Yellowstone in a Grumman Traveler

On 23 Aug 2006 22:09:12 -0700, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:
Elevation: 6,644 ft
Runway 1/19 ....8400 ft x 150 ft

Sounds easy. It's certainly plenty long...

Depends... A few years back, I was departing GCN (9000 ft long, 6609
ft elevation) and wasn't going to be able to clear the trees at the
south end of the runway... It took *forever* to just get into ground
effect and after that, it just wouldn't climb... There was a break in
the trees on the west side of the runway, so I squeezed between them
while still in ground effect... At that point, the ground starts
dropping off a bit and I started catching some thermals... It took
awhile to get the seat cushion unstuck from my butt after that
takeoff... Turns out that after I squeezed through the trees, the
tower issued a warning about a 9000 ft density altitude... That was
when I still had a 150 hp O-320 and as such, the climb performance
with two females and their associated luggage was definitely crap...