Anyone ever took a retractable to Aviosuperfice Acqui Terme (grass performance)

What’s the problem with landing on 500 meter grass ? And why should it be a problem of a retractable ? I recently took the Beech to a 600m grass strip, stood still before halfway. With the appropriate WB getting out again shouldn’t be a problem

Stopping on grass isn’t a problem. I have stopped in something like 200m at Heywood Farm

but needed every last bit of it to get airborne – plus new ones of these

So one needs a report from a pilot flying something similar who has actually been there.

Funnily enough the owner at the time told me it was 1200m – another lesson to do one’s own due diligence with Google Earth before going to a farm strip

shouldn’t be a problem

Erik, one more time: POH calculations are ultimately useless for takeoffs from unknown grass airfields. You clearly lack experience in this regard.

Bobo,

This is one of rather few Aviosuperfici in the North that I have not myself landed at (I did all of those in the northeast, but not quite all of them in the northwest). But even if I had landed there some time ago ago, I obviously wouldn’t be able to advise on the the current state of the runway. I passed by car once and remember it does not present any immediate obstacles (farm paths on both ends). But if you don’t feel comfortable with it, then it is your choice and certainly the right one.

Acqui is also likely to be affected by fog in this kind of season. Don’t forget to PPR for parking in Genova.

Philip, whatever. No need to be so pompous. It is possible to land and take off from 500m of grass. Not always with a Cirrus, maybe, but with a Mooney or Beech. I landed on a couple of aviosuperficies just recently, 500-600m, even higher grass, and it never was a problem. The POH is not entirely useless, is it ?

I can’t see what’s pompous about Bosco’s contribution. Rather I read it like basing upon good experience and acquaintance, and he – again – merits all our respect and gratitude. And when no experience available, that was equally clearly stated. What more could one want?

Myself am not qualified to reply to the opening question – I have never been to that field, and have never flown in a Mooney, not even as a passenger – but, seeing what I gather from the www, I think bobo’s reserves are more than justified:

• Mooneys are notorious for their limited prop clearance, they want a very smooth runway, and we have no verifyable information as to that
• depending on the particular type of Mooney, and the effective load, runway length could be critical
• an aspect not yet mentioned: as I gather from the www this is mainly a paradroppers’ field, not all of those are very happy to see foreigners blundering in. Even if it is not explicitly stated, I would begin by considering this field PPR. A little phone call before take-off seems to be a self-evident courtesy in Italy anyway, as I understand.

There is grass and there is grass.

If you spend say 30k on preparing it (I looked into this closely some years ago) then you can make it very good (but almost nobody does because the main point of grass is to save money).

If you spend say 100k on putting in the “covert” matting then you can make it good enough for a CJ4 (but virtually nobody does…).

You need a pirep on the actual place from a pilot who you can trust and who is not flying a Maule with tundra tyres

The lack of credible pireps is why I generally avoid grass nowadays.

And even when the report is from someone with the right aircraft type, he may be a renter while you are an owner… one sad aspect of GA is that I could tell some stories on that.

Jan_Olieslagers wrote:

Myself am not qualified to reply to the opening question – I have never been to that field, and have never flown in a Mooney, not even as a passenger – but, seeing what I gather from the www, I think bobo’s reserves are more than justified:

Mooneys are notorious for their limited prop clearance, they want a very smooth runway, and we have no verifyable information as to that

http://www.pacificnorthwestflying.com/index.php?topic=3514.0

This M20C regularly flies into the backcountry although U72 is 700m, looks shorter in the video.

Yeah, but that guy should get ready for a tank reseal job…

Also, the subject was primarily runway length. What most Americans call back country strips are often 3000 or even 4000 feet long runways! “European” strips are usually betwwn 400 and 600 metres long, and often soft…