REFLECTOR:Confession Week!!!

[Scott Derrick]

I had been practicing T&G's  for an hour or so and stopped at the FBO for a 
coke.  One of the airport bums had been watching me the whole time. I asked 
him if he would like a ride and he said "sure!"

It was 80 degrees, at 6500 ft, so density altitude was pretty high but I 
was less than 1/2 fuel and he's a small dude.

We get it, and chat about the panel and I'm telling him what to expect. I 
do an abbreviated run up because I've been flying all morning, oh,ho, red 
lights should flash!

We start rolling, RPM is good, I start calling out the speeds, it takes a 
good long while to get to rotation speed, we rotate and very very slowly 
stumble off the ground, I'm getting alarmed now.  We couldn't have been 
more  than 100 ft high over the runway lights and that's off a 7000 ft 
runway. climb rate is a dismal 100 fpm, the houses coming up seem awfully 
big in the windscreen , and he comments that it sure took a lot of runway 
to get off..

The speed is finally slowly starting to pick up as is the rate of climb, 
still way below what I've ever seen, engine sounds fine and all indicators 
in the green.

Then I saw it,  took off with the darn speed brake deployed!!   Jeeze.. I 
sheepishly flip the switch up and you could feel the zoom.  I told him next 
time I'll have to demonstrate how she performs rightly configured for take 
off.


Scott

"Those who sacrifice freedom to get security, deserve neither."
- Benjamin Franklin