Unicom: 07/06

Short, Soft And Bold
Jeff Pardo’s “Soft Touch” in the June 2006 issue asks rhetorically what to do if a field is short and soft, without giving a definitive answer. This question was asked by the Gulf Coast instructors who signed my logbook as a trick question, because the correct answer was “there is no such thing as a short/soft takeoff.”

Pardo notes that most POHs don’t cover this territory. The technical reason for this is that the techniques for soft-field takoffs and short-field takeoffs are mutually incompatible, so that trying to combine them means the pilot is doing neither. “The Advanced Pilot’s Flight Manual,” by William Kershner, briefly mentions combining a shor...