soft field landings tonight!!

[woodstock]

yesterday, just more pattern work. for being so frickin hot and hazy, there was surprisingly a fair amount of traffic.

today, we do soft field takeoffs and landings. sounds like you just want to keep the nose up as much as you can...

 

[Rudy]

Nose off the ground and leave the power in a little, they are actually quite easy and make for some smooth landings once you get it.

 

[jdwatson]

I love soft-field landings. I do soft-field landings as much as I can, provided enough runway and it won't mess up the traffic flow behind me. Some airports expect us "Class A" aircraft to be off the runway pretty quickly.

 

[sere]

yesterday, just more pattern work. for being so frickin hot and hazy, there was surprisingly a fair amount of traffic.

today, we do soft field takeoffs and landings. sounds like you just want to keep the nose up as much as you can...

There is a bit more to it than that. If you want to get a true feel for it find a turf runway to practice from. Once you have mastered the technique then do it for real sometime and it will suppries you how different it really is. Even better is a turf runway that has trees at each end. I have never thought much of doing short field or soft field from have paved runway that is long and clear on each end.

 

[poadeleted20]

today, we do soft field takeoffs and landings. sounds like you just want to keep the nose up as much as you can...

Not quite "as much as you can" -- more like "enough to keep the nosewheel out of the mud and lift off in the runway available." Too much nose up on a soft field takeoff can result in too much induced drag, putting you behind the power curve so you stagnate at about 40 knots rolling through the mud or just barely airborned in ground effect, unable to accelerate to the speed needed to generate enough lift to pull you out of that mud and into the air and then accelerate to Vx/Vy (as appropriate) without having to lower the nose to get the airspeed moving up again and settling back in the mud.

I teach students to start with the yoke all the way back on takeoff, but as soon as the nose comes up to the normal (or short-field, if appropriate) takeoff attitude, to relax that back pressure and keep the nose right where it is until the plane flies off. Likewise, on landing, I teach them to get the plane established in that same nose-high-but-not-too-high attitude, and jockey the power to ease the plane onto the main wheels, using increasing back pressure to keep the nose up like that as long as possible while decelerating and gently reducing whatever power is left to idle (too fast a power cut after touchdown cuts the airflow over the elevator so fast that the nose drops into the mud with a "plop" that can end in a "whang" as the prop follows the nosewheel into the mud).