Good morning,

would it be possible to add the calculation of takeoff distance (in addition to weight and balance) to Skydemon ?
A model could be this slide rule ("T.O.P. Comp" brand):

 http://www.primetab.com/flying/flying.topcomp.html
which can be bought here:
http://www.flightstore.co.uk/pilot-supplies-c1/flight-computers-c114/flight-computers-c115/takeoff-performance-computer-p5234

many thanks and best regards

Daniel

Just a new plea for this functionality - landing and TO distance calculator...

One of the common causes of incident and accidents remains the misjudging of take-off and landing runs on grass runways - so there is real potential here....

Agreed 1: There is a lot of variables, but some of the central ones are already at hand  - such as weight, elevation+temperature (Density altitude), runway slope, runway surface (not condition) - so a few POH curves on distances are required to be added to the aircraft profile in order to use this feature

Agreed 2: There is many ways to calculate the influence of the various factors - but "Safetysense Leaflet 7c Aeroplane Performance" would be a sensible solution - will not cover all and everything - but would be better than nothing... including relevant safety factors and disclaimers....

What do you think?



CAVOK and Happy landings to all,
/Henrik (HEJ)

I wonder if we are confusing calculations and estimating.

For most light aircraft on grass IMHO it's always seemed more a case of good judgement and experience, it's not really a calculation at all - and it's usually short grass strips where the distance available is going to be most marginal. 

Many of the significant factors involved in estimating are very subjective - e.g. how damp or soft the ground is, or how long the grass is. A few weeks back the only option was to taxi along the runway to judge how soft it was and judge the impact .... (if you need 1700rpm to taxi you know it's going to be tight!) - there's no way to 'calculate' the softness of the runway.  

So whilst there could be a nice like calculator in SkyDemon with standard take-off factors etc - I do wonder if this is an area where as GA pilots we've been trained in an erroneous pursuit of spurious precision. The real point of the going through the take-off factors is not the number that pops out the end - but rather a checklist of factors to consider - if SkyDemon calculated the answer for you, you'd no longer be going through the checklist.