Have noticed what appears to be a relatively early Cessna 310 living for a while at a farm strip about 10 miles west of CPT. The strip seems well maintained although the length seems a bit sporty for a 310. Not many of these earlier 310s around these days, hopefully the owner gets permission for a hangar.
The farm strip is Priors Farm a couple of miles north of Firs Farm, and is around 600 m long.
I used to rent a 1957 Cessna 310. At 600m the take off distance would be okay but I don’t think I’d want to land one on there especially if the grass was damp. Although there doesn’t look to be any obstacles to stop you touching down on the runway end. But would need too much skill for me.
That is so cool! Both: the 310 and the form of keeping it!
A friend of a family friend used to keep a twin (type unknown) at his mushroom farm somewhere in Oxfordshire or Berkshire. I got excited thinking it was this one, but false alarm. The mutual friend said the runway was terrifyingly short.
@Capitaine Well, if 600 m is not terrifyingly short for a Cessna 310, I don’t know what is this…
The Aztec has a landing distance of about 300m so if you add 50% for damp grass you should be okay with 450m so 600m would be a luxury.
I should point out thar this is landing roll out.
IIRC landing from crossing an obstacle at 50ft would need just over 500m + allowances for grass and state of grass.
I seem to remember also that the Twin Commanche is better.
The safety consideration is whether you use ASDA to calculate take off distance available in a Performance B piston twin. An operator may accept the risk that if they encounter a major malfunction before lift off they will treat the aircraft as a single engine and close the throttles and crash land ahead (you are very likely to need more than 600m). The sportier risk analysis is whether they are using a short field technique that involves using flaps and lifting off below take off safety speed, and in effect exposed to a Vmc roll event in the event of an engine failure in the seconds between lift off and accelerating to Vyse. Again you would need to be prepared to chop the power and crash land ahead. The crash landing area beyond the field seems quite benign so am guessing the operator is weighing up the risks, and accepting them.
Conversely the strip does look very short for landing with any dew or moisture.
Before lift off engine failure or any anomoly for that matter, you chop both engines and brake hard if there’s not much runway ahead. You do not crash land as you haven’t taken off yet.
Instead you sit and hope that there are no obstacles to stop your slide, suddenly.
It’s the same in an SEP except you have the advantage of being some half a tonne lighter.
@gallois agree if before lift off it is likely crashing through the fence/hedge/runway excursion on a short, possibly wet, grass strip.
Most take off briefs cite major malfunction as cause for rejection, perhaps an anomaly covers this, but a RTO is in itself a risk and therefore needs to be carried out in the right context. In a ME, un-commanded yaw being a typical first sign of a major malfunction.
