I will be spending the day at a warbird fly in in two weeks, and the club has a grass runway. I've landed off our runway on grass before, but not taken off. I know there will be more resistance to rolling on takeoff, and need to know of any other things to anticipate. Will a taildragger nose over if you hold some up elevator? I don't anticipate many problems, but I wanted to go in with some advice at least.

Yes, there will be some resistance on the wheels - how much depends on how tall/thick the grass is.

You'll need to hold full up as you bring the throttle up and balance it as you pick up speed.

(Full up while taxiing too)

Brett,

Our field is Bermuda grass and I hold up elevator
while taxing (tail dragger). I taxi out and turn in the
middle of the Runway and stop (Deep Breath ) .
Then start my take off run while holding in a little
up elevator. Try to get enough airspeed before you
lift off. I'm not one that goes WOT on my take off run
btw. Just over half throttle works on my planes. That's
the plus side of having more engine than required.
You'll probably find that you will use less rudder correction
off of grass too.

Bob

The Yukon feild keeps thier grass very short and neat. I have flown off of that runway quite a few times, and had no problems at all. Although there is a little more resistance, it's not very noticable.

I'm sure I'll be a little leary about the first takeoff, but my skyraider is so forgiving and powerful that its hard to make a mistake with it. I hope I didn't just jinx myself![sm=what_smile.gif]

What are the size of the wheels on your plane?

I learned on grass and now fly off of asphalt.....if the grass is short enough you won't have a problem....just make sure that all your wheels are free spinning....tighten them back up when you get back to a paved runway.....You might want to consider removing the wheel pants while on grass...depending on grass clippings......

brett - taking off grass is not hard. The biggest thing is holding up elevator and a little right rudder as the plane begins to accelerate. Don't hammer the throttle. As your building speed, relax the elevator. Just make sure that you have flying speed before lifting off Don't worry, our grass is not long at all, it it will be cut. If you can take-off pavement, you'll have no trouble - I'll show you how when you get to Henderson Field. I think that taking off grass with a taildragger is easier than pavement, The squirrelness for groundlooping is a lot lower due to the resistance of the grass. If you can, you might want to increase your wheel size on the mains by 1/4 to 1/2 inch. I'll be there on Friday in case you need to learn how. jetmech makes a good point about having your wheels spinning free, if they are tightened (for flying off pavement) you'll have too much of a braking effect.

I'm putting on a new set of robart diamond 2.5" scale wheels today. It has 2.25 on it now.

Bassfisher, are you coming to the fly in here in Yukon, OK? Hollman field is their runway. Not sure if we're talking about the same place or not.

Brett - I thought you were talking about coming the Henderson Scalin' Fun-fly on 9 May in Little Rock. My Bad!

That would be nice, but this is a free any warbird day. Only a 25min. drive too.

That's cool, and the drive doesn't sound too bad either.

If you can put larger wheels on.

2.75" seems to be about a minimum for handling grass runways.

Brett,
I was going to do a write up on that Warbird fly-in for RCU, but they have me going to cover Joe Nall that weekend now. Too bad, I was hoping to take my B-25 up there and fly it!!!

Follow the advice you got above you'll be fine on the grass.

Ken

Im pretty sure they will have the grass cut nicely... Keep some elevator back pressure, ease up the throttle and youll be fine..... plus if you happen to scrape a wing tip , you wont get nothing more than a scuff off a nice grass runway, vs road rash on asphalt

Brett, I tried grass for the first time a couple weeks ago, my P-51 really needed A LOT of right rudder on take off. One of the guys came over and put some toe-in in the gear then told me use the grass until I got the hang of the rudder on take off. It was not that bad. I had a nose over the first try, then with a bit of back pressure did just fine. You been doing this a lot longer then me you will be just fine man.

Hey pheonixangel, you gonna try and come to it? It's a drive for you, but worth it if you can make it. They're gonna have a fullscale warbird fly by at 10 AM.

Hey Brett, what day and time again?

Edit, nevermind, I found it http://www.westside-rc.org/

[link]http://www.westside-rc.org[/link] has all the info on the event.

Ken

Brett you won't have any trouble at all. That is where I have been flying lately and the field is nice and neat, grass is kept short. There are all sorts of planes flown there, from trainers to low wing, to electrics, giants, and jets. I have never seen anyone have any trouble caused by the field condition. Just roll into the throttle slowly and you will have a blast!!

I would have to drag 3 daughters (2, 6 and 11) and one wife along with me so it may not be worth the trip. 2 and a half hours in a vehicle with those four is ..a test. It is just the ages of them. The middle one annoys the big one, the little one annoys the middle one and they all start to annoy mom. If she aint happy no one is happy.

HAHA, I'm sure I will be enjoying that soon myself. Got a 1 month old and the other turns 2 next month, both boys. I'm sure they won't ever fight. Gonna have them out there to watch for a little while, my oldest loves airplanes already.

My girls love to watch Dad fly, the 11 yr old even has a couple of buddy box flights on the trainer. If I confine them that long is when I have issues LOL. I would not trade them for the world. The first time I took them to the field, the baby saw my plane and asked what it was. When I hit the throttle for the take off and it went down the runway she took off running screaming AIRPANE AIRPANE AIRPANE. Now she does it everytime she sees one anywhere. They are her favorite thing to help Dad with. She sits with mom holding the airtronics vg 400 without batteries or antenna and "fries airpanes" with Dad LOL. That is priceless.

Have a blast with them watching those warbirds.

Make sure you have a spare prop [ or two ].

Depending on the plane and the location of the U/C you can expect to noseover on some landings or takeoffs.

My Stampe never nosed over - my Spitfire with scale U/C was always on the edge and I had to get it exactly right to avoid the embarrassing tail up stop

i rarly props on nose over's. i only fly off a grass field and besides the pot holes to watch out for (were trying to get it level again) its not horrible. some planes like the grass more than others. my rapture has a nose over now and then (if i hit a pothole on taxi its a 50-50 chance of a nose strike). my spad doesnt know its on a grass runway (never had grass related noseover)
i have a yak 54 and a spad HOR id like to get out to the field this weekend for maiden. the yak 54 only has 3in or so of prop clearence, i hope its not a problem although i think it will be.