My son and I were in a rented, very early swept tail, Cessna 150. None of the switches or controls seemed to be in the same place as any of the more modern airplanes. The starter switch was a tee handle located near the top of the instrument panel. We had to search for everything as we read down the checklist, but finally we were confident that the airplane was ready to go. This was the 4th of July. The temperature was climbing into the high 90s. Traffic was using runway 22. The windsock vascillated in direction, but seemed to favor the opposite traffic pattern, but there were planes using 22 so we stuck with that. The mags checked out fine.

On the end of the runway I applied full power and we began tracking down the centerline. At 50 indicated, I lifted the nosewheel, and the Cessna continued down the runway. After a very long time the plane got lighter on its wheels and decided to lift off. I kept the plane just off the runway trying to gain a safe margin of speed. The angle of attack decreased slightly as we slowly went faster. We were flying in ground effect now and I was not sure that we could get out of it.

Remembering that the influence of ground effect theoretically diminishes to zero as the airplane gets to a half span above the ground, I realized for the first time in my flying experience that the Cessna had to get above the half span point before we ran out of enough runway to get it back down, or it may never get out of ground effect.

Years ago my brother Hugh was invited to fly an ultralight biplane in ElDorado Arkansas. Hugh was many pounds heavier than the usual pilot and it was a hot day. Hugh got off the ground OK but could not get out of ground effect. The strip was short and Hugh quickly ran out of runway. Fortunately the ground was flat and there was a roadway running diagonally across the end of the runway. Hugh headed off down the road hopelessly trying to get the airplane to climb. He found a convenient field beside the road to turn around in and headed back to the grass strip still below the tops of the trees. The downwind landing was safe.

In the Cessna we were traveling down a 5000 ft runway. There was time to shut down and land again if we could not climb out of ground effect, but the decision had to be made quickly.

In discussing this situation with a friend at lunch he recalled that a friend of his was ferrying an airplane from a cooler area up north through New Mexico. The stop was made during the heat of the day. On takeoff the airplane could not get out of ground effect. The pilot flew on over the flat ground ahead, but when the ground fell sharply away the airplane stalled and clobbered in with severe consequences.

The little Cessna popped up to above a half span so we continued on. We were at about 100 feet passing the end of the runway. The rest of the flight was uneventful, but there were some powerful lessons to be learned from it. It is easy now to see how one can quickly get into trouble in a high density altitude condition with ground effect masking it.