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What runway lengths do you operate from?


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I am curious as to what the typical runway length is for Long EZ and Varieze drivers. I've seen some pretty long takeoff and landing rolls at Rough River and online. They don't seem to match up to the POH very well, so I would like to know what you guys are seeing in real world flying.

 

Thanks for the help!

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My Cozy operates exactly as per the POH. even on gross. :cool:

 

My operations are mainly from BaraG (FASY). 3000' x 5400' ASL. typical temps are 20C (68F).

 

They are not short field, like an Aeronca ... mostly because they are not Aeroncas :)

 

regards

I live in my own little world! but its OK, they know me here!

Chris Van Hoof, Johannesburg, South Africa operate from FASY (Baragwanath)

Cozy Mk IV, ZU-CZZ, IO-360 (200hp) 70x80 prop

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I am curious as to what the typical runway length is for Long EZ and Varieze drivers....

Without DA, GW and CG information, the numbers you're seeing are meaningless. I've needed 1200 ft. for takeoff roll in my COZY MKIV, and I've needed 6000 ft. for takeoff roll. I've needed 1500 ft. for landing, and I've needed 4000 ft. for landing.

 

How does that help you?

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Marc speaks the truth---but you can look in the POH to get those numbers. Once you deviate off the plans---like the O320 in my Longez, then things sort of deviate from there.

 

Asking what people are doing is just asking about pers mins----unless someone wants to share new tables based on flight test data---but then again, that is more or less for THAT plane.

 

Anyway, my pers mins are set for landing---not takeoff---and takes care of just about any kind of flying that I would care to do east of the Mississippi. With that said, my pers mins tell you absolutely nothing about performance---except that I give myself another 1000 ft in the Cozy----and again, that is stopping performance. I know that I can step on the binders and stop a lot sooner---but why work that hard to get into an airport.

 

For newbies on either airplane, I would start at 4000 ft, then work yourself down. You will want to make sure you can hit that 2 or 3K mark on a 4k runway-----not just go for it, then figure out you can't make it.

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Thane flies into a small private airport where I hanger my plane near my house to pick me up In Cozy MKIV N 656TE every once in a while so he can shoot instrument approaches while I act as safety pilot. 45G is 3120' X 24' paved asphalt in mediocre condition with trees at both ends. A Long EZ is based there. Last week at take-off we were loaded with 34 gallons of fuel and baggage pods attached. Left the nose ballast in the hanger, front seats loaded with 385#, temps were 38*F, 5knt. headwind, field elevation 973'. I will estimate we had only about 500-600' of runway left before the mains left the ground and we used every foot of the take-off end of the runway. An older Mooney had taken off before us and used about 1000' before the wheels left the ground and he was climbing out like a home sick angel at the half way mark already 100' agl! Thane has gotten really good on his landings, (thanks Marc!), and nails the threshold lines just about everytime. This landing hit the numbers right on and using medium braking and full rudder deflection barely made the last taxi turn off which is about 400' from the end of the runway. I don't know how that compares to other MKIV's and his plane is a bit heavy. Keep you planes light people!

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We're flat-landers (~900'MSL) with a posted 3,500', but with a displaced threshold it's more like 4,200'. I typically use 3,000 as a guide for an unfamiliar runway, though shorter is certainly possible for our 310HP fixed-pitch Velocity XL.

 

Brett

---

Brett Ferrell

Velocity XL/FG

Cincinnati, OH

http://www.velocityxl.com

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Just out of curiosity, and perhaps with some blasphemy,

 

Has anybody considered a C/S/ prop with beta pitch possibilities??

 

That assumes, of course that the TO distance is less than or equal to the landing distance with the Beta.

??????

I Canardly contain myself!

Rich :D

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Not personally, but a Velo buddy of mine is installing a Vesta electric with Beta. I keep trying to talk him out of it, because near as I can tell, there's no good way to tell when it's bottomed out and starting to go into Beta, and it'd be a helluva thing to go into Beta prematurely. The Vesta pitch controller is just a more/less switch, no indication, no RPM control, just more or less. As Neat as Beta seems, I just couldn't do it. I'm going to help him try to find a way to work a limit switch in there or something to stop it before it goes into Beta, and require you to get back on the switch to continue.

 

B

---

Brett Ferrell

Velocity XL/FG

Cincinnati, OH

http://www.velocityxl.com

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Not personally, but a Velo buddy of mine is installing a Vesta electric with Beta. I keep trying to talk him out of it, because near as I can tell, there's no good way to tell when it's bottomed out and starting to go into Beta, and it'd be a helluva thing to go into Beta prematurely. The Vesta pitch controller is just a more/less switch, no indication, no RPM control, just more or less. As Neat as Beta seems, I just couldn't do it. I'm going to help him try to find a way to work a limit switch in there or something to stop it before it goes into Beta, and require you to get back on the switch to continue.

 

B

That is problematical and for me-- a no-go situation. Airmaster props (new zealand) uses microswitches to determine limits of pitch, and I think they also have Beta available. Unfortunately, at this time, they only have Warp drive blades. I know that they are working on others, but the progress is slow.

I Canardly contain myself!

Rich :D

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  • 4 months later...

Went into an airfield yesterday that I thought was 3200 ft. Unfortunately, I did not read the fine print of a 600 ft displaced threshold which was included in this number----and the threshold was kind of a hard pack asphalt with a dispersed/loose gravel type material on top (great for RVs--not so great for EZs). The main part of the runway was listed in fair condition---but had lots of cracks in it which made it sound like it was going to tear my nose gear off through the deceleration----on the brakes right after landing. Also---trees (50ft obstacle on both ends).

 

As soon as my main mounts hit, I said to my wife----we won't be back. After my time there for the fly-in (which was a good time), I started asking questions about the runway length----because it seemed pretty short. That is when I really found out that it was 2600 ft (I use 2900 to 3000 ft as my pers min with no obstacle). I could really only take off in one direction----start off on the end without the displaced threshold. There was next to no wind----but the little that was there favored the other direction.

 

Time to break out the perf charts. Looks like I will need just about all of the runway available minus displaced threshold----an aborted takeoff would be very difficult.

 

Luckily, I had just met a bunch of nice people at the fly-in and asked one of them if they would drive my wife and 3 yr old to the neighboring airfield with a much longer runway. Dropping off about 160 lbs of combined weight did the trick and bought me several more hundred feet of takeoff roll.

 

Getting off the ground was good---boy was the field short and the trees tall----and again, what a crappy runway (as I willed my airplane not to shed the nose gear).

 

Picked up my wife and daughter and away we went.

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