Landing a Ovation 3 on a 2500 feet runways

[aviatoreb]

Flew into Stockton today to leave the airplane for some work.  Took along another student who flys a Falcon Jet for his day job and has a Rocket that I would use to work with him on short field landings.  I don't like to waste tire tread taxiing so I got down to about a foot off the 4400 foot runway and flew at somewhere close to 50 knots (just above stall but didn't look at the exact speed due to paying attention to what I was doing) to very close to runway end which is closest to Top Gun.  I used about 100 RPM above idle.  My right seater kept saying, "Aren't you going to land".  I said, "Not yet."  As we approached the last turn off, I rolled off the power, immediately touched down, and had to taxi up to the turn off.  He was surprised, I wasn't.  Induced drag is reduced by about 50% at a height of 10% of the wing span.  Actual ground roll was a couple of hundred feet in the Bravo.  I acknowledge this isn't the same as an approach to a landing where you are mostly out of ground effect, but if you know your airplane you can make very short field landings.

 

That's a fun story.  So 50kts is very slow in a Bravo - isn't it? I assume stall is that low since you were in ground effect?  Is that right?  What is your normal stall in actual flight as you were configured?

[donkaye]

That's a fun story.  So 50kts is very slow in a Bravo - isn't it? I assume stall is that low since you were in ground effect?  Is that right?  What is your normal stall in actual flight as you were configured?

 

 

At my weight the stall should have been around 57 knots, but I had good control of the airplane in low ground effect and at touch down it was done flying with no excess lift.

[aaronk25]

Very cool! I do this at RST too 10k runway my turn off to the T hangers is about 7k down the most used runway.

I'd say that if someone can fly down the runway 1ft off the ground at a couple knots above or at stall speed and keep it centered above the center line, short field landings are a byproduct of excellent aircraft control.

[29-0363]

For about a year I was based at YSPT (Southport, Queensland AU) with a runway 01/19 of 2,522 ft, and still fly 29-0363 into there occasionally. As other contributors have articulated, speed on approach is critical, and with any indications of overshoot or float it's essential to go around an have another go.  

 

A go around is not an admission of failure, it's a demonstration of good airmanship. 

 

I would never take off at MTOW, preferring to refuel on-route if needed.