showdown time

There are two runways at Apple Valley. The primary is composed of runways One-Eight and Three-Six: in other words, it's straight north-south. It's the primary runway because the wind usually comes out of the south around here (if the word "usually" can be applied to desert winds).

The primary is 6,000 feet long, 150 feet wide, and a real pleasure to land on. You can see it from miles away. Crosswinds can be a problem, but they are usually negligible. The landing pattern is easy to fly. There are no obstacles or obstructions at either end. The approach is a piece of cake.

The other runway is 08-26, conforming almost precisely to 80 and 260 degrees of the compass, roughly east-west. I'm going to focus my attention on Two-Six, because I haven't trucked much with Zero-Eight, and it's Two-Six that really causes me problems. I hate runway Two-Six. I've hated it ever since I first set eyes on it. I can't stand the damn thing. It's only 4099 feet long and a piddling 60 feet wide. Compared to its perpendicular big brother, it's tiny. It looks no wider than two-lane road from 2,000 feet above ground. Then there are the obstructions at either end of the runway. To the east and west, mountains rise out of the valley floor, 500-700 feet or so. That makes the pattern runs for 26 something of a trick. To land in a speedy airplane like the Mooney, you have to ride quite near the eastern mountains; and you need to make your crosswind turn rather early on takeoff to play it safe with the western bunch.

Two-Six and I have a rather...adversarial relationship. I've had to do a disproportionately high number of go-rounds on it. (Go-rounds are aborted landings, where you don't actually touch down, but rather power up, retract the landing gear, and "go 'round" for another try.) For that reason alone, I came to dislike the runway. It's just so—dang—hard to get it right. The runway's so freakin' narrow that, on top of all the other stuff I'm doing to ensure that the Mooney is actually coming down at an appropriate angle and speed, I have to work extra hard to line the plane up on the skinny little strip of asphalt.

Matters came to a stormy head this morning. I was flying with Spud, and I'd elected to fly the morning mission: takeoff, climb, descent, and return, with Spud just doing the chasing stuff. There was a 15-knot wind coming out of the west-southwest, as well. That would provide a minimal crosswind component on a west-facing runway—less than 10 knots—but it would be a different takeoff than one with no wind at all. We preflighted N214SH and climbed in. I taxied Sierra Hotel to 26, feeling nervous as usual. I never feel like I'm completely in control of that airplane. The rudder pedals are tiny, and I it seems I have to push quite a bit to make any difference. The throttle settings are sensitive, and the throttle lever itself difficult to manage. Furthermore, visibility in Sierra Hotel is the worst of the two Mooneys we fly, and I feel like I'm craning just to see down the taxiway. We reached the end of 26 and did a run-up. Then I called over the radio: "Apple Valley Traffic, Mooney 214 Sierra Hotel is taking Runway Two Six, departure to the west, Apple Valley." This was it. Just another takeoff. I'd done about six or so in the Mooneys already, and nothing eventful had happened. No big deal, right? It was. No sooner did I push the throttle all the way in (smoothly, like I'd been taught) than the Mooney began yawing to the left. We accelerated: 20, 30, 40. I pushed the right rudder pedal in, desperately. No good. The Mooney continued to swerve left, faster and faster. I looked up and saw the edge of the pavement looming near, and the dusty margin beyond, lined with creosote bushes. We were going off the runway. "I've got it," Spud said calmly, taking the controls. We straightened out. The Mooney lifted off. Spud raised the gear and we flew on to Victorville.

That crashing, sinking, virulent, feverish feeling of horrible shame came washing over me like a cloudburst. I was becoming intimately familiar with it, particularly in the cockpit. "Okay," I said, endeavoring to keep my voice level, "what'd I do wrong?" "You didn't apply enough right rudder," Spud said. We went on to have a long and (fortunately for my pride) extremely non-accusatory discussion about P-factor, propellers, throttle settings, crosswinds, and takeoff procedures.

See, propellers are rather heavy. And they spin fast. Unless you're flying a twin with counter-rotating props (spinning in opposite directions), your airplane is going to be affected by the torque coming off of the spinning propeller. Known as P-factor, this force means that, when you're flying at high throttle settings, you have to keep your foot pressed down on the right rudder pedal, just to balance out that left-pulling torque. Nowhere is this more important than during takeoff, when you have a lot of torque and not a lot of airspeed. Apparently, I just didn't add enough rudder. Perhaps I was thrown off by the crosswind from the left, and figured I didn't need as much. 

Whatever the reason, I was red-faced for the rest of the day, even despite Spud laughing it off and telling me that I have a whole career of doing stupid things in an airplane ahead of me. I took his word for it. Wouldn't do to neglect the advice of a former Top Gun instructor, you know. I also hated Two-Six more than ever. Spud noticed my chagrin, and good man that he was, he let me do the afternoon takeoff, too.
"Otherwise," he grinned, "your previous landing would torture you all weekend."
"You know me very well," I said.
"Well, who wouldn't be?" he pointed out.

So it was agreed, and so it was. I found myself sitting at the end of Two-Six, staring down every single one of those 4099 feet, the heatwaves coming up off the ground, the unfettered desert sun blasting down, Sierra Hotel's engine roaring and raring to go. I was literally sweating the takeoff. It was 95 degrees outside, and even hotter in a closed cockpit under a merciless ball of cosmic radiation. The tension screamed through every pore, oozing down my forehead like vitriol. Runway 26 sat there, short and narrow-eyed, laughing at me. It was high noon. Showdown time. Well, actually it was more like 1:30, but who gives a crap?

(Photo courtesy of Picasa. Yes, that's the actual runway.)

I took a deep breath. I throttled up. The engine howled and we started to move. I sat up straight, kept my eyes on the runway. I didn't want to swerve a foot off that dotted center line. We went rolling down the runway, Spud sitting calmly and watching the proceedings. I stuck to my guns. I tenderly pressed the right rudder pedal, then the left, then the right, until I'd gotten the feel of how much rudder I needed. When we got fast enough, I gently pulled back on the yoke. And off we went, thundering into the azure heavens. I kept 'er straight as we lifted off. I nudged the nose down a bit so the propeller wouldn't over-rotate. I raised the gear, jamming the hefty Johnson bar into the lock on the floor. I pulled us right, so we wouldn't scrape Bell Mountain on our way north, and then we were climbing into the blue, free and clear.
"Eat that, Two Six," I muttered as the sweat dried on my forehead.
"You owned it," Spud told me, his trusty grin on his face.

Redemption accomplished.