Back home and back to Mathis Airfield for some serious landing practice. I took back off in the Champ towards the cliff, circled the airport and came back in for landing number one. Trees seemed scary close on approach, but I was probably no lower than on prior attempts. I overshot the start of the runway and touched down about a third of the way down, on the asphalt at least! I then powered back up for a touch-and-go, but perhaps that was not such a good idea. I was facing the tree filled end of the runway and even with the short take-off capabilities of the champ, I barely cleared the trees:
I'm actually starting to bank to the right just a bit in that image, hoping to get my left wing up above to the top of that tree. Anyway, the next attempt wasn't much better, but at least I did a full stop landing and stopped before the end of the runway.The third and final attempt before I had to take a break was the best so far. I really was down in the trees on the approach:
Hard to tell from the pictures, but when you pause the replay and pan around you can tell how tight everything is. There's a tree to my left that is taller than my current wing level, and other trees that are right around and just barely under me. Too much lower, and I probably would hit something. At about the point shown or a little before, I killed all power and basically dove through a gap in the trees to try to lose another couple hundred feet over the water so I could grab the end of the runway (but without crashing into the cliff face):
This is probably as good as I could hope for. I've cleared the cliff, lined up on the runway, and I'm only 30' or so in the air at this point. I got the wheels down and braked to a stop at about the midpoint of the runway:
Hard to tell from this image, but the runway is narrower than my wing span, and only about twice the width of my main gear. The Mathis website says it's 35' wide, but that may be a recent improvement. The Champ has a 35' wingspan and the wings clearly extend off on either side over grass. I'd say the runway as simulated in FSX, is only about 20' wide. It feels like landing on a sidewalk!
Hard to tell from the pictures, but when you pause the replay and pan around you can tell how tight everything is. There's a tree to my left that is taller than my current wing level, and other trees that are right around and just barely under me. Too much lower, and I probably would hit something. At about the point shown or a little before, I killed all power and basically dove through a gap in the trees to try to lose another couple hundred feet over the water so I could grab the end of the runway (but without crashing into the cliff face):
This is probably as good as I could hope for. I've cleared the cliff, lined up on the runway, and I'm only 30' or so in the air at this point. I got the wheels down and braked to a stop at about the midpoint of the runway:
Hard to tell from this image, but the runway is narrower than my wing span, and only about twice the width of my main gear. The Mathis website says it's 35' wide, but that may be a recent improvement. The Champ has a 35' wingspan and the wings clearly extend off on either side over grass. I'd say the runway as simulated in FSX, is only about 20' wide. It feels like landing on a sidewalk!Anyway, daddy duty calls, so that's probably all the flying I'll get in tonight. August has been a busy month. Looking forward to September.
No comments:
Post a Comment