tangoindia

REDWING, just inside McGuire's airspace in NJ (1590 x 70 ft) and Butter Valley in PA(1535 X 24 ASPHALT PORTION) on a mighty 152 heavy. Then around a 2000ft strip on a c208B

Airhoss

Fully loaded Horton STOL equipped C-180 on tundra tires in and out of 600' to 800' of gravel bar with great regularity. A CA-212 on skis also fully loaded onto and off of polar ice floes. As they start to break up in the spring your nice long comfortable 2500' ice strip can quickly become 1200' with jumble ice at either end. That is when a Twin Otter comes in handy. The Twin Otter is most amazing workhorse bush plane in the world IMHO.

There is a HUGE difference between playing around with a lightly loaded cub or a lightly loaded anything for that matter and a heavily loaded working airplane into and off of unprepared surfaces like glaciers, ice floes,river bars and ridge lines. I can get a 180 with a STOL kit on it off the ground in several hundred feet or less with a little headwind with just me and half tanks. But being able to haul a payload out of short rough nasty gravel bar takes some serious judgment and experience. It is REAL easy to overload an airplane when the available run out is short and rough. Add a couple of moose quarters a few duffel bags rifles and a fat man and it changes the whole equation. A heavily loaded float plane will really snag you especially at altitude. You can put a float plane into places you couldn't dream of getting it out of.