Hey everyone,
Jason Schappert here MzeroA.com, welcome to
one of my favorite places, the Cedar Key Airport.
I'm going to take you for a lap in the pattern here, for a short field takeoff, followed by
a short field landing. Cedar Key, water on both ends, 2,200 feet
My run up is already complete, I'm back taxing to the end of 23 here,
again, you've heard me say it a million times," using every little bit of runway."
Flaps are already set, per the POH, everything is good to go there.
That is all great, using every bit of runway here.
Do my best to roll out on center line.
As we bring it on around here.
Nice little displaced threshold to help us out here. Alright,
we have everything set here, and what we're going to do now is we're going to
give it full power while holding the breaks. Now, with this being on full power
this is a good opportunity, and really your last opportunity, to verify engine gages are in the green,
and everything is good, everything is running smoothly. My feet are going to leave the breaks
at the same time and swap straight to the bottom of the pedals, because I'm gonna need some right rudder
in there because of those left turning tendencies are taking me over. Verify my airspeed is
alive, my engine gage is still all green.
We rotate about 55 of this airplane and we are up and flying.
We are pretending that we are clearing a 50 foot obstacle so
we're climbing out of VX, VX climb, we clear the obstacle,
lower the nose to a VY climb, and I don't take out the flaps all at once. I kind of baby
em out about 5 degrees at a time here. Get those flaps up. Sometimes you take the flaps up too
much too fast, you cause a lot of that sink.
In that case here. We're going to fly on out and keep this in the pattern here for a
left traffic at Cedar Key. What a beautiful place. Certainly something to add
to your bucket list. "Cedar Key traffic, 23 Mike Zulu is turning left crosswing.
A right turn on a left crosswind now, nice
get that takeoff in. We're super light, just myself on board here.
Airplanes trimmed up real nicely, I already took the flaps out.
We're continuing on through, keeping it in the traffic pattern here.
Pretty easy to tell what our traffic patterns altitude is going to be since we are at sea level.
Rolling out on my crosswind. We will get a good look at this runway when we're coming in here on final.
Coming up just about ready to turn my downwind.
Managing my airspeed, even this far out, making sure
I don't get too fast, don't get too slow. Here comes my 1000 feet
anticipating that by bringing some power back, so I don't blow through it. Because I could end up being too high
out here on something like the downwind.
"Cedar Key traffic 23 Mike Zulu
is on a left downwind for a 23 will that be fine for a back taxi?"
" Are you gonna land again sir?" "Yes sir, we are gonna be a full stop."
We are gonna taxi back right after wards. "Okay, we roger that
I'll hold short of the runway." "I appreciate you, we'll keep it tight."
Alright, work with the other traffic, right? Alright, holding this here
nicely at 1000 feet.
Abeam might touch down point already, because there isn't much of a runway. Carburetor heat is coming on.
And we're just coming back a little bit back here. And I'm putting in 10 degrees of flaps.
And I'm making sure I'm actually starting down often times too I add flaps.
I can get a little increase in my lift a little
bit there, and make that wing a little bit larger causing that increase followed by
that drag here. Everything is looking great, waiting for my 45 degree point.
managing my airspeed, and I'm turning base. "Cedar Key traffic
turning left base runway 23 Cedar Key.
All is looking good on base
What a beautiful place.
Managing my airspeed, not too high, not too fast
wings level, lowering my next notch of flaps here.
Looking great, squaring up my base a little bit here. I can
feel that wind pushing me through, so I almost have a little bit of a crab angle on base.
Verify final is clear. I don't want to overshoot, don't want to undershoot, and I shallow turn to base.
I will turn towards final. "Cedar Key traffic 23 Mike Zulu is turning final 23 full stop Cedar Key."
Looking good, as I'm kind of, this is almost like rounding this out.
A common problem on short fields too is we'll blow through final and we try to come back
around and save it and we just end up screwing up the landing way out here,
and the traffic pattern before we get into that critical phase of touch down here.
Pretty little runway. Coming on in. Don't want to come in too short
on this one now do you? You notice that we have that displaced threshold out in front of us
here. I'm going to aim right for where that two three starts, right at the end of that displaced
threshold. Airspeed is great, I'm 75 out here on final and I
only have 20 degrees of flaps, and I'm going to my next notch here before I get to 300 feet
there's that. I've got all my flaps in now, every things looking great. My power's basically
back to idle, I'm holding 70 on in here. Everything is looking great.
I'm aiming for this water though. See how I've got the nose down towards the water because I know
my 172 has that tendency to float here.
And we're floating through that displaced threshold. Float through that displaced threshold,
here comes the end of the runway and there goes the airplane.
And we go on the brakes, back on that yoke to add some weight to
those mains. If you want to add more weight, some people will take the flaps out at this point,
some instructors aren't so crazy about that idea of taking those flaps out, especially like in a retract plane
they don't want you to accidentally to grab that gear, and taking that up. Where some will say, Hey we don't touch anything until
after the fact, but you know to each their own sometimes. So listen,
Can't wait to read your comments on this video on MzeroA.com, Youtube, Facebook where ever it is.
Enjoy the rest of your day and most importantly remember that a good pilot is always learning!
Have a great day!