Why no soft field instructions in POH?

[Tracey]

Hello again everyone...

My instructor and I were going over soft and short field landings today (talking and looking at the POH, the clouds were too low for VFR flight <sad face>) and there were instructions for short field landings/TOs in the POH, but not soft field. Anyone know why?

 

[Jim Logajan]

Hello again everyone...

My instructor and I were going over soft and short field landings today (talking and looking at the POH, the clouds were too low for VFR flight <sad face>) and there were instructions for short field landings/TOs in the POH, but not soft field. Anyone know why?

The Cessna 152 and 172 POHs do not have labeled sections on soft field operations. However, check under the "Taxi" and "Wing Flap Settings" (or their equivalents in your airplane's POH) under "Normal Procedures" (or its equivalent in your airplane's POH) and you should find mention of soft (and rough) field recommendations.

For example, both the 1985 C-152 POH and 1976 C-172 POH provide a couple sentences of guidance on soft field takeoffs under the wing flap settings sections.

EDIT: Also look under "Normal Procedures", "Landing", "Normal Landing" and you should also find mention of soft field landing. Bottom line is that soft field recommendations are buried in paragraphs on normal operations.

 

[Jim Logajan]

Ok, I'll look there (and more thoroughly thru the POH) tomorrow. Thank you!

Per my late edit: Also look under "Normal Procedures", "Landing", "Normal Landing" and you should also find mention of soft field landing. Bottom line is that soft field recommendations are buried in paragraphs on normal operations.

Yet another edit: The 172M manual does a better job (such as it is) on this than the 152 manual I have. The guidance in the FAA "Airplane Flying Handbook" is probably best, since most of what you need to know is technique that is roughly independent of airplane model.