Adventures in Downhill Landings

[MrMorden]

I'm reposting this from the ctflier.com forum, since it may be of interest...



I went with some friends (Craig from the ctflier board flew with me, a buddy and his wife in his Avid Flyer) to Peachstate Airport (GA2) on Saturday. I had never been there, but my friend in the Avid has been there several times.

The runway is 2400ft grass oriented 13/31. The wind was strongly favoring 31 (6-8 knots at 270), but that direction is downhill, so we had to make a decision. We decided to accept the downhill landing in order to land into the wind.

The Avid landed first, about 3/4 mile ahead of me. He mentioned a large mud patch toward the approach end, and suggested we land a little long to avoid it. When I got to it I saw the problem...it looked like somebody had dug a furrow in the center of the runway, about 100ft long and five feet wide. Landing long to miss it meant giving up about 400ft of runway.

Because of the wind being a little gusty and not quite aligned with the runway, and the airplane having two people in it, I elected for 15° flaps instead of my normal 30°. I usually can finesse a landing a little more precisely with 15°. We landed just past the mud patch with a touchdown speed of about 47kt. The landing was pretty good, but we touched down just where the runway turned downhill. I did not want to use a lot of braking because of the soft-ish surface, and grass usually slows the plane pretty fast, so I let the airplane roll out a bit...and roll...and roll. The downhill was steeper than anticipated, and the airplane took *forever* to slow down.

I finally gently applied some brakes, and slowly increased braking as the end of the runway was approaching. We ended up getting slow enough to turn around for back taxi with about 300ft remaining in the runway. That's closer than I have ever been to the end of a runway on rollout. It was never really scary, but it was an eye opener as to how much a downhill runway can affect the landing sequence.

Lessons learned:

1) Land uphill when possible on a steep slope runway, unless the wind is *really* howling.

2) When landing downhill, apply at least gentle braking immediately because it's going to take a while.

3) On even moderately short runways, especially landing downhill, use the most amount of flaps you can manage safely to keep landing speeds as low as possible.

4) If you have to land long to avoid an obstruction or runway condition, items 1-3 increase in importance.

5) Flying is fun and educational.

[drseti]

And, may I add:

6) Always be ready for a go-around.

Well done, Andy.

[MrMorden]

And, may I add:

6) Always be ready for a go-around.

Well done, Andy.

Agreed. In this case it would have been dicey because by the time a go around might be known to be prudent (already on the ground and rolling on a short grass field), I likely would not have enough runway left to execute one safely.

But you can see the accident chain...unfamiliar field, more slope than anticipated, having to land long, limited options. If that runway had been 2000ft instead of 2400ft, it might have been a lot more scary.

[MrMorden]

Here is the landing in question, complete with dramatic music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOfvPWJ9ok

[FastEddieB]

Allow me to cross post as well:

Nice landing, nice music!

Maybe just a perceptual lack on my part, but I never noticed any slope the one time I was down there:

http://youtu.be/aEDltmHhwrE

(Karen just playing cinematographer with an iPhone from the back seat.)

Seemed flat as a pancake to me, but I'll stipulate that I just did not pick up on any grade to be reckoned with.

I reckon'!

[Flocker]

The hula girl steals the show... LOL

[MrMorden]

The hula girl steals the show... LOL

She always does...

BTW, it's not a "hula girl", it's a "Precision Turbulence Indicator (PTI)"...