Darn you Cat Driver. I was going to mention stuff about flying the twin otter in the Arctic, but you beat me to it. Oh well.
The flying down in Haiti is pretty straight forward as far as twin otter flying goes. We were using the twin otter as a sked airplane from airport to airport, so that is not really the niche the twin otter has really carved itself into.
We did do a little bit of off field work on a little inland north of Haiti (L'isle de tortue) The "strip" that we landed on was a goat track if you could even call it that, when we paced it out, we figured it to be just under 1000' long. We went in there at 10 500 or 10 700 I can't remember with no wind on a day that was 35 + degrees out. The airplane is more than capable of landing and taking off from a strip like that. The ideal STOL landing is one where the stall light illuminates in the flare, right at the start of the runway....it's very impressive when it is done properly.
The full STOL take off is definately something that anyone who flies the twin otter should know how to do, it can get you out of places that you shouldn't be in in the first place. Standing on the brakes is a definate necessity, as well as the stick all the way back in the gut. Off the brakes, the airplane jumps forward, the nose wheel breaks ground, roll the nose forward, pick up some speed to be above red line, get the flaps back to 10 degrees through blueline, and fly it away like normal after that. If there are unknown obstacles around, the climb at red line is ideal, but you are hooped if anything decides to go kaput.
This may be the first and last time that I will ever get to correct Cat Driver, so here goes. The twin otter was NOT designed for short field/off strip work, it was originally intended for the 19 seat commuter market using inner city airports.
However, with the incredible STOL performance of the twin otter, it was ideal to follow in the footsteps of the Beaver and single Otter and become a world renowned bush airplane.
Hey Cat, did you ever see Transat's twin otter? I believe it was a -310 series, although that may have been the Australian or British conversion...can't remember. The Transat twin otter had spoilers, a re-designed brake system and a different fire system I believe...your good friends at Transport are now in pocession of it....but I believe they have converted it back a standard 300 series model.
