Spot the runway! (Oregon, a few weeks back).
No problem at all on landing (don’t touch the brakes!) but acceleration on departure had me wondering if the ASI had frozen up overnight. Walking around the apron was another matter, since it was impossible to stand upright on the clear ice. Hangarage essential in these conditions, since the ice wouldn’t melt off until well past midday.
(I even make a vid but the camera packed up which is a pity)>
With a very poor cabin heater, I found it impossible to video in very cold conditions until I bought a camera freezeproofed to -10C.
I wanted to go flying some days ago but our airfield is officially PPR when there is a lot of snow (because of the heaps left and right of the runway which are not ICAO conformant). Didn't get the PPR because they forgot to put winter diesel in the fire truck which was therefore INOP. This sucks!
Although I can't make any contributions to this thread from my own experience, I'd like to thank Pilot DAR in particular for all his tips - it's so interesting to read and add to my own small pot of knowledge. Likewise the threads on "Flying through Frontal Weather" and "Icing in VMC"...
Stay safe all you adventurous peeps :)
Jojo the Lurker!
Live and learn indeed, well done. Now I'm not sure which Maule you have, but on your own, with half tanks, I would expect to be long airborne at 600 feet of roll. You might find that working up to a bit more vigour might produce even more rewarding results. Remind yourself that the stall warning is just that, a warning. If the plane is off the ground, particularly in ground effect, and accelerating, you can live with the stall warning, it's going to go away as you lower the nose, but without touching down again, if you're gentle and careful.
Always good to keep the runway under you as log as you can though. Most every landing and take off I do in the Teal will require full rudder application at some point. The Siai Marchetti 1019 I test flew required full pedal applied and held during takeoff every time, and sometimes that was not enough! Don't be afraid to apply full pedal if you need to. Go up and do some slow flight, with lots of altitude. Apply full pedal with some aileron, exactly as you would on the ground roll, you'll find that you have lots of control, without it getting scary. If you're afraid of entering a spin, quickly lower the nose while you straighten out and you'll be fine.
Oh and sprayed de-icer stuff on the disks before starting out
Well I went out today and tried it, (I even make a vid but the camera packed up which is a pity)
I started out thinking of just rolling it, but my roller is 5 ton and about 8ft wide and just pushed the snow in front of it and skidded.
I put the plough on the tractor and let it free ride on the surface which left about an inch of snow on top of the grass and in parts i got the herring bone down into the grass but nothing to deep or severe. My biggest concern was that the snow was melting and it got kinda sticky and boggy.
Drove up and down the strip with the quad seemed fine but a bit sloshy and sticky, taxied the plane up and went to swing her round at the end and as i had only done 3 rows with the plough (8ft each) i never made the 180 and had to jump out and push her back, during this i noticed just how much the remaining snow had melted and the tailwheel was deep in mud and slush.
Lined up and ready to go, now this is where I learned a something, and that is the planes capabilities exceed my piloting skills. Anyway, full power and off she goes dragging a bit but not to bad, at about 200ft down the 1700ft strip i start drifting/bouncing to the left and based on the heading i would have hit the left snow bank before 1/2 way. Now i don't know why but I never put in heavy right rudder like i should have and as crazy as it sounds I was trying to "wish" the plane back to centre line, I have no idea why I did this but i did. About 350 to 400ft with the left bank getting closer i lifted the nose slightly and the stall light came on so i eased forward, now the left snow bank is really approaching fast (and still no damn full right rudder, still cant figure that one out) and i ease the nose up again and as soon as airborne the stall comes on again, eased the nose forward and just cleared the snowbank , lowered the nose gained speed and regained centerline and climbed out as normal, used about 600ft of the strip.
Landing was pretty straight forward apart from picking up a bunch of mud on the wings and tail, taxied back to the hangar and shut down. Walked the strip to see my TO and landing tracks and realised just how slushy muddy the field had become.
All in all a great experience and learning curve and pissed at myself for making the TO more dangerous than it needed to be by not being more proactive and firmer on the rudder.
Live and learn
I have successfully rolled snow with a light roller, not this year. Has to be the 'Right kind of snow'.
