Low attitude at touchdown. The goal is to be at 0.6 AOA or higher at touchdown. That attitude wasn't near those numbers.

Also, he was in power reverse for a *long* time. You got to idle reverse at 60 KIAS, which for me, is a quite short time.


I suspect he was using the brakes quite heavily.

Mike C.

Whatever they cost to maintain saves more than that for tires and brakes.

Mike C.

Another 501 landing at Mountain Air. Runway looks about the size of a postage stamp.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/jLDhGdjL2gI[/youtube]

And here he is taking off (fast forward to 6:25). Doesn't look like he's accelerating too well down the runway, though that could be an illusion. May or may not have dropped a bit off the end.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/1Hq9k9Bl5lA[/youtube]

2900 ft runway, 4432 ft elevation, on a warm day, they probably did not meet takeoff runway distance. That distance assumes engine failure at V1 and crossing end of the runway at 35 ft AGL, so there's margin in the numbers, but one has to be careful when nibbling at those edges.

Mike C.

Even considering runway slope?

V1 is lowered for a negative runway gradient. So basically your go/no-go decision is sooner. Mike T, however, considers V1 to be at brake release for this runway! For me, once I hit about 50kts, I'm going (off the end if necessary)!

That looks like a pretty aggressive push over in the left turn on departure. He may have gotten a bit slow but reacted quickly. Scary.

The AFM is not physics, it is regulation.

Anything that shortens your takeoff isn't taken at full value. Negative gradient provides no distance benefit. Headwind takeoffs only get a fraction of the wind counted. Tailwind takeoffs assume the tailwind is larger than specified.

Markings are built into the number by regulation and testing procedures.

The MU2 AFM takeoff distances are basically unusable since they are so far from the truth no one follows them. In some cases, the "penalty" is so blatant as to be clearly done artificially. Carlson's Solitaire at KSQL probably has never been operated conforming to the AFM runway numbers, for example.

Mike C.

Anything that shortens your takeoff isn't taken at full value. Negative gradient provides no distance benefit.

For a negative gradient, I suspect whatever shortening of the takeoff roll is provided by the downward slope, it is offset enough by the increased stopping distance in the event of an abort that Cessna decided to call it a wash and therefore makes no correction (decrease) to takeoff distance.

I don't think it was that hot. The nearest airport, Asheville (KAVL, more than 2,000 feet lower) didn't exceed 27 degrees C max during the entire Labor Day 2009 weekend. I doubt he took off at the hottest part of the day and therefore I don't think he was much over 20 degrees C if at all. So he was probably pretty close to takeoff runway distance assuming he was 10,000 pounds or less.

But it's always possible they forgot about some gold bars stashed in the baggage compartment.

No correction for negative gradient? That doesn't make sense.