flying field

[charlierainman]

O.K., I'm new here, thinking of building an XL Legal Eagle. I don't have a pilots license, I fly models, that's it so far. The Legal Eagle caught my attention, especially with videos from Les Homan, Joe Spencer, Tim Floyd, Scott Johnson and others, wow. I am wondering, how big of a flying field would be a good size, how long would you say with a safety margin? I don't really want to build one of these if I have to keep it at an airport and pay hanger rental. I can get 600 feet, maybe a little more, but I gotta level a hill to do it, but then I could have a small hanger in my yard. Anyway, I would appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

[XL-C-100]

I fly my eagle xl with a 4a084 engine from a 1000 feet of hay field at an elevation of near 1000 feet. It works out fine but 600 feet would be stretching it for my takeoff run. I'm not sure how others with the 45 hp vw would feel?

[CHARLES DEBOER]

I also have an LE XL with a 45 hp by Scott Casler of Hummel Engines Inc. out of Arizona.  I have a link to a YOU TUBE video of my first Crow hop on a 1300' strip. I got off the ground in about 200' and skimmed along the ground at 8 feet for about 700' and had a ground roll out of 300'.  Check it out here:     It is a safe web link if you use the https://  and you tube scrubs all the stuff before they allow it to be posted.  Or... you could view it here on this web site.  Go to single seaters> XL > LEXL A-67.
I am at 75' MSL and was still flying in ground effect.  I think your field should work if you don't have obstacles at the either end higher than 50".  As you can see in the video there are 40' obstacles on my field and i have no problem climbing out after 400'.

[Dan_]

Leonard once told me that 600 ft. might be OK if you don't have any obstacles higher than a page wire fence...

Personally, I would not want to be a budding pilot and have no margin for error on every take-off and landing.

A poised and polished pilot would go around at the first sign of anything less than a perfect landing. 


Time spent on recovering a bounce will burn up your remaining runway.


Also I would not want to be a budding pilot, and not have had training to at least soloing a Cessna 150.

They teach you important safety practices before they sign you off to solo.

[CHARLES DEBOER]

I have had a few landings that went long.  By-all-means get some instruction first.  I came in too fast on this one and didn't have much room for error.  

[charlierainman]

Yeah, I didn't mean to sound like I was gonna do this overnight, I haven't even ordered plans yet,(ha). I want to contact a fellow that I know, that gives flight instruction, then go on to someone that gives ultralight instruction. I may not be able to have a flyable airplane for some time, I work a lot of overtime and a lot of that is travel time, so I'm not rushing things.

[stevejahr]

I found when flying models there is a big difference between a field intended and setup for model flying and someplace improvised.  The planes tended to last a lot longer and require a lot fewer repairs when flying from the real fields.  Projecting that experience to something that my butt is sitting in... I would want to have a fair amount of experience somewhere with a lot more margin for error before I tried to hit minimums on an improvised field.

And don't forget that these are all home built thus variance between particular planes is expected.  Be a bummer to be on the low side of the performance spectrum on a field that requires the *other* side of the spectrum.

[scottiniowa]

  I don't really want to build one of these if I have to keep it at an airport and pay hanger rental. I can get 600 feet, maybe a little more, but I gotta level a hill to do it, but then I could have a small hanger in my yard.  

Just another thought in slightly different direction- When you say, “gotta level a hill”   what are you talking?   taking a few humps and spreading them out? or  taking 5-6’ off the hill, and spreading that to either end or both?   even at $150 an hour (and that could be low)  you could look at $1000 easy, and maybe more depending on your “hill” term.   Then leveling the dozer work, dragging, seeding, more dragging.   All takes time and money.   But certainly could be worth it.  Sometimes shorter, doesn’t always mean less cost.   

Then of course “small hanger”   this also could go from a little to a lot.      

Just a few things to think about with other looming thoughts of  future times---when your in the seat with a fairly warm day at hand, and 600 foot of grass ahead, that you wish you had mowed short last night.