Flying EZ's off grass

[jodava]

I've been reading about the mods to operate the EZ off grass. Obviously inspection of the strip is required beforehand.....the smoother the better I suppse. Any experiences, ie; parts for the mod, suppliers of those parts, and anything else would be appreciated.........j

[TMann]

Depends on many things. Are you building a Long-EZ or modifying an existing one. If it's a decent grass strip, you can takeoff with the landing brake down to prevent the front wheel from throwing various matter into your prop.

 

The Long-EZ I'm building is going to have the retractable gear from Infinity Aerospace. It has a wide enough stance to avoid getting unwanted matter thrown into the prop from the mains. The standard fixed gear cannot avoid that.

[Jon Matcho]

I have read reports where the front wheel was never able to separate from the "pull" of the grass, causing an off-field event.

[Waiter]

I'm not aware of any "special" mods that make operations on turf any easier. I don't recall seeing any EZs with Tundra Tires and nicely faired wheel pants, :-)

 

The only thing I can think of would be the size of the main tires. Many EZs have opted to install the smaller diameter tires and wheel pants to reduce aerodynamic drag. I believe these smaller diameter tires would be detrimental to turf operations. The plans 5x5 tires would be preferred over the small Chin tires.

 

Although the EZ can operate off turf, takeoff performance is substantially reduced.

 

If I planed on turf operations on a regular basis, I would strongly consider removing the wheel pants.

 

To anyone considering operating off of turf, I would recommend getting time-in-type on hard surfaces before attempting turf operations.

 

When I say Turf operations with an EZ, I'm talking about;

 

Very hard surface, i.e. hard dry clay. Rain, mud, gravel, sand, etc will make the ground softer and reduce your performance to the point where it will be impossible to take off from the surface.

 

Very smooth surface, i.e. no ruts, gopher holes, etc.

 

Very Short , freshly cut Grass, maybe two inches, maximum. The shorter the better, If the grass is tall i.e. greater than two inches, you will never be able to gain sufficient speed to achieve a takeoff.

 

IMHO - Although its certianly possible, I would discourage regular operations from anything but a hard surface runway. It really isn't a good fit.

 

Waiter