pretty planes

Back in 1963, some regional airlines still flew the DC3. I have a nice memory of traveling on one via Trans-Texas Airways from Houston to Victoria, Texas. A few years later they changed their name to Texas International and switched to DC-9 jets if I recall. Eventually merged into Continental, now United. Times change.
Buffalo Airways in Canada still does a multiple daily run on their DC-3.

In 1963 a lot of airlines still operated DC-3's. Not just Trans-Texas. Remember, commercial JET aviation was still in its infancy.
 
people forget that grass hinders acceleration and therefore you need a longer runway on a grass strip
but there was a hard seal road right there, next to the strip. Go figure. Over weight, obviously, for the grass strip length available.
 
but there was a hard seal road right there, next to the strip. Go figure. Over weight, obviously, for the grass strip length available.
But the road might have had obstacles like telephone poles, light poles, even electrical wires or even a fence. We didn't see the whole road, so we don't know if it was even viable as an alternate runway.

We had a grass strip down here at a resort where people fly in and fish on the local lake. It's been in business for a very long, long time. Probably 70 or 80 years.

People often crash when leaving as they forget about flying off a grass strip when you're heavy and its hot outside. Density altitude goes up tremendously due to the high heat. Then add in a heavy plane due to carrying the fish out and the added reduction of acceleration due to the grass strip. People have been crashing on T/O for as long as I can remember, maybe 40+ years.

About 10-15 years ago someone crashed on takeoff (not the only one, several have) and all onboard died due to their airspeed and flying into trees. Even though it was the pilot's fault, the widow sued the resort and won, so they closed the grass strip. The resort just couldn't afford the insurance bill anymore.

Very similar as to why single engine airplanes weren't built for several years. (Specifically, the Cessna case)
 
but there was a hard seal road right there, next to the strip. Go figure. Over weight, obviously, for the grass strip length available.
Ok, we don't know that it was overweight. The AN is a slow speed airplane. There's a US pilot close to where I live that actually owns one and flies it around to some local airshows. Since it's a biplane, it has very good slow flying characteristics including low speeds for T/O and landing.
 
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