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POH Shortfield vs. Normal Takeoff distances

Asked by: 3766 views General Aviation, Private Pilot, Student Pilot

I'm a student pilot doing ALOT of self study for my private pilot license. I only have about 5 or so hours of flight time. My CFI has begun teaching me about calculating takeoff and landing distances, but when I bought a copy of a POH for the C172R I noticed there's only a chart for Shortfield distances. Is there a way to calculate for normal takeoff configuration? Meaning flaps up, not holding brakes before full power, etc.?

On the POH it says the Shortfield config is 10 degrees flaps, brakes held before going full throttle.

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1 Answers



  1. Kris Kortokrax on May 08, 2016

    I looked at the POH for a C172N and a C172S. They show the same information as does your C172R POH.

    Since there are no charts for a normal takeoff, We have to resort to common sense.

    In the C172N POH, the most adverse set of conditions would require 2095 feet of runway for ground roll (I use ground roll because if you were going to clear an obstacle, you would need to rely on short field technique). I doubt that you are flying at an airport with a 2100 foot runway. At a 4000′ pressure altitude, you would only require 1400 feet for ground roll.

    Now, we all know that these numbers were developed by a test pilot in a new airplane and that we should not expect to see those numbers, but if we don’t use a short field technique and assumed that the ground roll would double, we would still have sufficient runway length at most airports.

    The longest runway at Midway airport is 6522 feet and Southwest routinely flies 737 jets from the airport (admittedly not at maximum gross weight, but still substantially heavier than a C172).

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