Reasons for sampling adverse conditions
Nice long, smooth runways are a good place to start this process. But they're not a good place to end it. Life isn't always long, or flat, or smooth; neither are a lot of runways. That's why no pilot earns a pilot certificate without showing that he or she can depart from, and arrive back safely on, runways that are short, or soft or rough, or obstructed--or any combination thereof. Teaching a new pilot these techniques until that student "exhibits knowledge" about them, as the practical test standards require, carries risk: The lesson must be safe but realistic. And to experience reality and have epiphanies, students must be allowed to err.
A situation where this becomes tricky is a soft-field takeoff. At the start of the takeoff run, the control wheel of a nosewheel aircraft is held full back, to lighten and eventually lift the nosewheel off a soft or rough surface. This is intended to prevent nosewheel damage, or becoming bogged in mire. Acceleration makes the control surfaces more responsive, so the back-pressure must be progressively lowered just enough to satisfy two goals: keeping the nosewheel off the ground, and making the aircraft fly as soon as possible. Then the aircraft is held in ground effect, accelerating just above the runway until a controllable climb is possible. Done right, nothing demonstrates pilot technique better. Performed erroneously, things can quickly become a mess.
On August 3, 2006, a student pilot was practicing in a Cessna 172M for an upcoming flight test at the Calaveras County Airport in California. This is what happened next, described in a National Transportation Safety Board accident summary: "They flew from Merced and landed at Calaveras County and conducted a couple of takeoffs and landings. They were in the process of practicing a soft-field takeoff when the accident occurred. The CFI's account of the sequence revealed that the student conducted the soft-field takeoff with the airplane established in a nose-high pitch attitude. The CFI said that the airplane very quickly rose above ground effect and the student was a little slow in lowering the nose of the airplane to gain airspeed. The instructor said he delayed taking corrective action since the student's checkride was coming up and he wanted to see the student take action on his own.
"The flight continued, and the student informed the CFI that it felt as though the right wing wanted to drop. The CFI took control of the airplane, lowered the nose, and applied left aileron, but it was too late. The left wing dropped, and the airplane descended to ground impact." The probable cause of the mishap was said to be "the student pilot's improper soft-field takeoff technique and failure to obtain and maintain an adequate airspeed, which resulted in a stall mush. The certificated flight instructor's inadequate supervision of the maneuver was also causal."
I sympathize with both. The report brought back memories of my own journey into true understanding of what this delicate maneuver entails. That learning did not happen all at once. Yes, my primary flight instructors were skilled pilots and well-trained teachers of the aeronautical art. I mostly flew with one CFI, but when an airline career beckoned, he and his back-ups worked as a team to prepare me for my checkride. They took the practical test standards seriously, giving me confidence that I was not only able to fly airplanes, but that I should fly airplanes.
One constraint on my learning was that in those days I lived and flew in an area much more developed and urbanized than the remote, rural locale where my life as a working pilot began. True soft-field takeoffs and landings were not part of the routine. One day that changed.
Up until then, all of the soft-field demonstrations and practice had been on the wide, paved, 5,500-foot runway of my busy home airport near metro Boston. Hardly realistic. On this day we would perform one--yes, one--takeoff from the grass alongside that mile-long strip of asphalt. This was heralded as a great occasion made possible only by the rare combination of light traffic, a good airplane, and instructor adventurism. But the message was clear: This may never happen again around here.
I found the experience more confusing than edifying. I remember that I taxied guiltily and timidly onto the grass surface, feeling like I was doing something naughty. I recall the CFI telling me firmly, "Full back," as he eased the control yoke toward our mid-sections. The takeoff run down the undulating strip of grass was the oddest thing I had experienced in an aircraft. The forward visibility was limited by pitch. Under my unsure handling the Cessna 152 lifted off for a second but settled back as the grass came and went under the wheels. The instructor assured that this bit of bounding--something forbidden on pavement--was fine, and to stay focused. Then we were off the ground and leveled off in ground effect to pick up speed. Next we climbed, retracted the flaps, and everything was normal again. I knew I had been to a different part of the flying universe. More than anything I felt uncertainty about what had just happened.
A few years later, when I moved away and my working life as a pilot began, there were many differences in my new flying environment. Its airports and aircraft had a more rustic quality. Flying older, less-well-equipped aircraft became the rule. Some of the tight little airports we used were thrilling compared to the grandiose paved aerodromes of my student days. It seemed that everywhere I flew for fun or profit, I was dropping in at an unimproved airfield where the airplane, landing between two huge pine trees, resembled nothing so much as a kicked football, barely clearing the goalposts.
At wet times of year--and at some of these airports perpetually--the turf was both rough and slippery. The local aviators who took my piloting to the next level weren't fazed by places like that, which helped me and later my own students to not be fazed.
An epiphany came one day on a mountainside airstrip where a good soft-field takeoff was the only option. This was Blue Hill, Maine. The aircraft was a stripped-down, maxed-out Cessna 150, which, as my flying partner that day described it, "ain't overburdened with power." We were there to pick up some small aircraft-engine part. The strip--check it out on Google Earth--was plenty long enough at 3,200 feet. But it had interesting characteristics including variable width, a distinctly tapered northern end, obstructions, terrain-influenced winds, and a very rough surface. Under such circumstances a soft-field takeoff becomes a balancing act between differing and somewhat conflicting goals.
Taking off north into a northwest wind, I wanted to get the aircraft airborne as promptly as possible to put a stop to that infernal pounding of the gear on the ragged surface. This proved tricky with the wind gusting. I accelerated down the runway with full-back elevator, lifted the nosewheel, and then held it off the ground. As flight controls became effective, the task was to lower the nose enough to keep the aircraft from rearing up ridiculously, but not so much that the nosewheel would plant itself and risk being shorn off. Not easy while bouncing along.
At about this time the aircraft was trying to fly. Once the pounding noise stopped, the challenge was to lower the nose slightly (again avoiding touching down in the gusty air) and accelerate to a firmly controllable climb speed, thus avoiding mushing into the tall foliage at the end of the strip when the time came to add back-pressure again to ascend.
All this while, much of my attention was going toward keeping the loud little Cessna 150 positioned directly above the runway in the swirling, gusting crosswind spilling down from the summit. Now out of ground effect came a brief interval of climb at best angle of climb speed, followed by a transition to best rate once clear of the obstacles. Go ahead, retract the flaps (recommended for rough-field departures in the 150) and take a deep breath--all is again right with the world. Practicing soft-field takeoffs on tar was never quite like this. In a place like this you could see why a soft-field takeoff was different from any other takeoff. It was a lesson never to be forgotten.
Other airports had their own lessons to teach about fog, winds, obstructions, and any number of surprising things. But if I had to offer only one piece of advice to a student pilot about training, it would be to embrace reality wherever it is safe and possible to do so. If your flight school or fixed-base operator doesn't like you to fly its aircraft from short or unpaved airports, or train in strong crosswinds, or taste marginal VFR conditions (or worse) legally with a qualified instructor, get a few hours' experience with someone who does. The training will open your eyes, preparing you for the time when you may enter a new flying environment.
Dan Namowitz is an aviation writer and flight instructor. A pilot since 1985 and an instructor since 1990, he resides in Maine.
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