First time on grass

[kwmoore]

My 260se's have all been Pampered Pavement Queens, until yesterday. First I went to Georgetown (E36) to practice a soft field landing or two on pavement. It's an interesting airport in that the approach to 16 has trees very close off to the right and the sight picture is not unlike Sedona, i.e. a carrier landing approach over low terrain giving the tendency to approach too high.

All went well so off to Columbia (O22) for a landing on 29, their turf runway. This involves a low approach right across the active paved runway 17/35. No planes were in the runup areas, there was no other traffic except a TBM reporting 5 mile final so in we went, 45 KIAS across the numbers for a smooth nose high touchdown followed by a bumpy rollout with yoke full aft. I taxied back to the paved threshold then applied power with yoke full aft and trundled through the grass, liftoff took much longer than on pavement. Likely I was holding the nose too high but once off everything was normal and we headed to Frazier Lake, 1C9. There were grass stains and some dirt splotches on the wheelpants, 812PL was a virgin no longer! ;)

We had the pattern to ourselves for right traffic 23 and I set up with 20 deg flaps and 15" mp on downwind, then controlled glideslope with power and turned a close in base and final. The base to final turn was at 60 KIAS and about 200 feet agl, 1/4 mile or so from the runway. Reduced power and rolled in full aft trim for 45 KIAS crossing the threshold. This time the flare was a few inches too high and we touched down with a slight thump followed by another bumpy rollout. This runway was a bit wet and soft and I got some mud splats on the wheelpants. Interestingly the taxiway was paved! The normal entrance to 23 was coned off, maybe too wet, so we did a little off-roading through the non-coned area onto the runway. I really had to maintain power to keep the plane moving through the damp grass and soft ground! Once on the crown of the runway a normal soft field takeoff had us airborne, this time I kept the nose a little lower and we were off sooner.

Somehow I had this picture of grass runways being like the 18th fairway at Augusta National but they were more like medium rough at East Drainage Muni.

Very satisfying outing, no damage to wheelpants or pride, and after 45 minutes of cleaning back at PAO the bugs, grass stains and mud splashes were history. :cool:

[Scott Ainsbury]

Welcome to the club Kevin. I just wanted to drop you a line to say I'm now a member of your club too (new 260SE owner)! I bought Andrews plane and flew her home from Florida 3 weeks back and its been the most fun 3 weeks of my flying life! I love flying anywhere but especially I love the grass (where you can find it in the NorthEast) and it is the reason I am leaving pants off the newest member of my family, at least for now. After flying her home from Florida to NY the first place I took her was the local grass field for some hangar talk with the local cub n maule crowd. They were really impressed with the 260SE performance even under my rookie pilotage. As you can probably tell, so was I :)! My airport has 5400x100 so I needed to see for myself some of the capabilities of the plane as consistenly having the long taxi to the first rollout point was becoming a chore!

Regarding the pants, we have the added problem of snow and ice up here in the winter so I'm staying nude for now. Maybe ill change my mind once the summer resurfaces and I'm more interested in parading N52459 around the Hamptons or Nantucket where beauty is more important than practicallity! it is kind of nice to be able to fill the tires and check the brakes without the hassle of the pants (which i had on all my other planes)

As a question, is there any preference amongst the owners here for the best pants to install if one does not currently have any? I'm interested in other 260SE owners opinions. As i said im currently happy being naked but if the markets ever rebound and i find myself again able to think about such things I'd appreciate some views. I'm not convinced of the speed increase but they do look kind of nice when you have to roll amongst the Jets.

Anyway hope to be able to add some tales of new ownership over time to the website. Keep up the great work.

Scott

[kwmoore]

Welcome to the 260se family! Hope to hear lots about your adventures with the new bird. :)

[kwmoore]

As a question, is there any preference amongst the owners here for the best pants to install if one does not currently have any? I'm interested in other 260SE owners opinions. As i said im currently happy being naked but if the markets ever rebound and i find myself again able to think about such things I'd appreciate some views. I'm not convinced of the speed increase but they do look kind of nice when you have to roll amongst the Jets.

The "stock" pants on planes from Todd are Knots2U, others--Glen Green and Jim Leachman I know--have installed Horton's kit. You will see a speed increase compared to naked wheels; how much is probably airframe-specific.

Once you get proficient at the slow speed stuff and if you have airplane $ to spend, you might also consider the wingtip extensions. I notice a 4-5 kt low end difference; 45 KIAS in my Katmai "feels" like 50 KIAS did in my earlier 260se's with the stock wing.

[Todd]

Welcome the the 260SE/STOL family Scott! You are among a great group of pilots!

I'm speaking for Todd here--he will probably have additional thoughts--but here are some of the reasons we use the Knots2U speed kit/fairings. They are new fiberglass fairings whereas Horton modifies the Cessna wheel fairings. The advantage to fiberglass is that they can be repaired more easily/better than the ABS Cessna fairings. The Knots2U main wheel fairings have a separate two-piece brake fairing which attaches to the main fairing with Camlocs to make accessing the brakes much easier, and all fairings are "split" down the middle front to back to make removing them much easier. There is also a small door on all the fairings to access the valve core to check/air up the tires. I think the Horton installation is more labor intensive thus more expensive. Horton, the last time we checked, did not offer a complete kit for the later models that we work with.

Jo

[n2099x]

Yep, I love my Horton stuff. For the earlier airframes with spring gear its the only way to go. It is expensive to buy labor intensive to install but very fast to fly. I leave mine on even with my grass strip. Snow and ice wouldn't be much fun with them because the are a snug fit.

Glen

[joejenie]

Todd,

What would it cost to change my current bushwheel set up out for normal tires, normal front fork and Knots 2 U wheel pants (painting too of course)? Would I have to change rims and brakes as well? I had a guy ask me and i didn't have a clue.

My King Katmai would be one fast bird, but it would look a little wimpier...;)

[wdwitrak]

i find a major negative with the knots2u wheelpants is that the inspection door could be far better configured to access the tire valve stem. The orientation of the valve stem to the door is such that you have to stick one finger inside, torque the stem 70degrees aft, try to get a pressure gauge or air hose on it orthogonally so it doesn't leak, and not wrack one's knuckles at the same time. Just sticking the gauge or filler into the door and pushing down on the stem doesn't seem to work well since the valve stem depresses too much, air often escapes, ya lose tire pressure and then the stem depresses even more. I put on some new "less leaky" inner tubes on all my wheels so I had to check my pressures less,expressly for this reason. Too bad a right angled valve stem couldn't be put on the hub. ????Could it???

bw

[wdwitrak]

I forgot to mention some of my grass strip flying.
My home airport KSUW has two runways, 31/13 is 4k and 21/3 is 5k in length.Runway 4 is grass is ~1.5k, is mostly dirt/sod with a little barely perceptible gravel mixed in. Its approach is strictly from the 04 end, over a road, modest fence, used to have some trees at the approach end. This strip is currently very easy in the 260se. Over the fence @ 60, full flaps, chop power, hit the turf, and then it's like being on a very rough hiway rumble strip. Before the approach end trees were cut it was still pretty easy,,,I'd focus on the treetops, clear them by 20ft or so,flaps,power,sink and quickly drop to the strip. Rollout isn't all that much more than the ultralights landng there. I don't use it much except for fun, since I'm not sure I like the shaking all of those cheap gizmos in my panel. Another grass/sand strip 60 miles away at 5G4 is similarly a bit rough, ~2.5k in length, and is similarly no problem in and out.