Warbird Information Exchange

From what I remember, it was 1997 I believe.

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

I'm not a pilot but I found Bill's comments on the type of grass interesting since part of my real world job is groundskeeping. I work for a group of tractor and mower dealerships and deal with a lot of different types of mowers so I'm thinking of grass strips from the landscaper's viewpoint. Small to medium tractor with a large "finish mower". (golf course mower.) on big balloon turfies. Just watch for incoming Spitfires.
A humorous aside, in an osprey book on 91 'Nigeria Sqn., RAF' there was in incident where the well-meaning groundskeeper was mowing the runway, at Hawkinge possibly, when 91's irascible CO flew in. He strafed the mower and the poor sap driving it bailed off and ran for the hills and the tractor packed it in amidst some stone walls at the edge.

Canso42

I'm lucky where I live and fly out of as we have 3000' of pavement and a parallel 2600' of grass, so generally speaking I depart off the pavement and land in the grass. Best of both worlds!

From what I've learned, the grass strips in England and Europe were actually just huge fields with no official runways. The aircraft simply lined up into the wind and took off. Aircraft like -109's, Spit's and Hurri's (with extremely narrow gear) don't care for the side loads that happen with crosswinds. I think it could even go further back, as far as WW I, when aircraft didn't have brakes or tailwheels and needed to land into the wind for safety.

RICK

As for the nose-wheelers, I can personally vouch for the ability of the Cessna 0-2A, NA L-17, Grumman C-1A, NA T-28, and Ercoupe to operate from grass.

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real airplanes have round engines

"real airplanes have round engines..."

I would add: ...And a tailwheel !

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Michel C
Thousands of a/c pics at Passion-Aviation

It's interesting how much a modern perspective directs our thinking. Cart, horse, chicken, egg!

Landing directly into wind has always been a better idea than not. Today's runways, therefore, are the compromise, not the original large (ideally round) field that, AFAIK, was the international standard - mostly up to W.W.II.

As Rick says, in Europe, the UK, and most of the globe, prior to W.W.II airfields and airports didn't have designated runways but landing areas. I'm not familiar with US practice in that period - anyone?

One of the reasons flying boats were popular up to W.W.II was that grass fields, the vast majority of airports then, were not good for heavy aircraft. The British experimented with 'accelerators' to get laden bombers off, as well as going for the more familiar runways.

As we know, runways bring numerous benefits and traffic, lighting load etc, but we also accept the out of wind payoff on aircraft structures as well. (Video footage of the new Airbus undertaking crosswind acceptance in Iceland demonstrates what a big ask that is.)

Linking to the comments in another thread on German vs British serviceability in aircraft design, the Messerschmitt 109s narrow gear enabled rapid rail shipping as it was attached to the fuselage, and thus a 109 sans wings could use its own gear to be moved. The Spitfire was a design compromise, neither as useful not so narrow, 'toed' or difficult as the 109's. However it was neither wide like the Hurricane's nor did it support the aircraft with the wings off. The Hurricane had a wide track gear (definitely NOT narrow) so it could cope with rough fields, as did all Hawkers of W.W.II. All three types mentioned were expected to used fields, not runways; but utility overcame practicality in the case of the 109.

The Germans found captured B-24s somewhat problematic on grass, and lost a couple due to nosewheel collapses.

The Operations Officer of the RAAF Museum was asked after he'd landed the RAAF Museum's Winjeel on grass at Point Cook this week why he used the grass, by a member of the public.

As well as the tailwheel preference mentioned above, he added that it meant he was closer to the audience. However he also added that normally, Point Cook's grass strips have some 'give' and are better, but with the current dry conditions, they can be very bumpy due to the soil erosion between grass clumps.

HTH

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James K

"Switch on the underwater landing lights"
Emilio Largo, Thunderball.

www.VintageAeroWriter.com

As James said, grass was the norm pre-war. Croydon was London's Airport until sometime in 1946 when it was replaced by Heathrow and never had hard runways.

With hindsight, no hard runways may have been of benefit during the Battle of Britain. When the Luftwaffe were attacking the airfields, it must have been much easier and quicker to fill craters than it would have been to repair a runway. Also, depending on the number and position of the craters, I guess there was often enough usable area for aircraft to return to base.

airstrips in the pacific must have been terrible on the tires of all aircraft used. With the grated system (can't remember the name) they used to line strips with, as well as the crushed coral being a problem. I see that grass strips are much more desirable, but wouldn't you have other problems with grass? such as objects flying up and hitting the airplane, etc.

I believe that was known as "PSP": Pierced Steel Planking.

Did I get that one right, Jack?

Dean the usually wrong

PSP was also known as Marsden Matting (spelling?). I have also read of the 49th Fighter Group guys, when they got the P-40N's with the smaller 27" wheels, going to the dumped older P-40E's and salvaging the larger 30" wheels as they "rode" the bumpy crushed coral strips a little easier.