AKfreighter

After reading the thread "Your worst landing" I thought it might be interesting to hear of any really poor takeoffs. Generally not as memorable as the bad landings, but hopefully we will get some stories.

My worst. A short field (off field) gravel bar. Chose not to use all of it, due to big bumps which I discovered upon landing at one end. Applied full throttle, grapped 20 degrees of flaps at the point I thought it would be getting ready to fly. It didn't. I waited and grabbed more flaps as a 15 foot burm of gravel and alders was approaching. Abruptly closed the throttle at a point at which I thought I could stop or do a semi-groundlooped stop in front of the alders, just as it started to fly. Abruptly opened the throttle. Worst of all, I had a less than impressed female companion with me.

Akfreight

AVIVIII

Back when I first got my Comm. ticket, I did a little work/training with an aerial photography place in WV flying a 206. The airplane had an electrical failure while we were out so we came back and removed the camera from the plane (460 lbs) with it running and I flew it solo (minus the camera guy in the back, 170 lbs) to the MX facility just a quick 10 NM flight. After a long day of flying the grid, I set the trim to its "normal" position (marked with red tape for the camera ops) and went to take off. (the real T/O position had long ago worn off). I hit Vr and tried to pull back, nothing. Really wrenched on it, still nothing. 85 knots and there goes the 1000' markers on the other end of a 3000' runway. Sh!t. I went right for the mixture, cut it. I was burning up the brakes and even had the door open for some more drag. I was doing S-Turns as I was nearing the end of the runway and was headed for a diagonal taxiway. I Stopped with my nose wheel on the threshold line. IMHO, way more scary than my worst landing.