I know what you mean, Frank! One of the earliest trips we made in N146YS was when Jamie and I left our place west of Austin to go down to Dry Creek (TS07 in NW Houston) to pick up former Historian Cleo Bickford and Wendell Wyborny for the purpose that we were all going to attend the Galveston Air Show that day. It was a big event...the B-2 Bomber was going to make a low-fly-by and we all wanted to see that, plus some Assoc'n Members (one from FL) were coming from all over to attend.
Anyway, landed at Dry Creek with 30 gals of fuel and running a bit late, Cleo jumped into the back seat behind me, Jamie moved to the back and Wendell jumped in the rt front seat and we taxiied to the north end of that grass strip. The early morning dew was still on the grass...(which also might have benefitted from a
mower)...and the pressures of landing at Galveston before the Noon airport-closure-time was pressing us... and my mind was on getting airborne. I don't even recall if I knew how long the turf rwy was I was so distracted with getting to GLS before Noon and it was already past Eleven A.M. (Ans:3580')
N146YS was still relatively new to me and I hadn't yet learned to appreciate it's 7655 cruise prop which only generates 2230 on takeoff. (generates about 118 HP)
The wind was non-existant and I firewalled that throttle and Humid-Houston-water-vapor whirled off the propeller-tips as the airplane just barely rolled...
most of that movement was remaining momentum from taxying onto the runway....
- DryCreek.jpg (11.33 KiB) Viewed 16555 times
As we eventually approached the mid-point of the runway the Airspeed Indicator finally jumped up off the "40" which was the
lowest indication it could register.... As we passed Wendell's House (3/4 down the rwy on the right) the Airspeed was finally at 60 and it sank-in on me what a bad job I was doing with regard to decision-making.
"Expletive-Not-Deleted", involuntarily came out of my mouth.
Cleo started laughing...
Wendell said, "This engine sure has good oil-pressure."
"Expletive-Not-Deleted-LOUDER".... and those trees and short power-line at the south end slipped beneath the belly and the full view of a well-developed neighborhood came into view over-the-nose.
I think I felt my face FLUSH as I realized how unprofessionally I had just lucked out with my wife and friends on board.
But no one commented further.
We were the last plane to land at GLS on Rwy 13 and as we rolled off the Rwy I felt the tailwheel go flat.
We blocked the air-show for the next 30 minutes while the local Mx shop got a dolly beneath the tailwheel and towed the airplane off for a flat-repair.... Just one more thing to make that day
memorable for me.
The 170 is a 4-place airplane in the sense it has 4 seats for reasonably-sized people if you only have half-fuel and no baggage and plenty of runway without obstacles.