The Take off later in the week was a thriller. Our performance charts only went up to 10,000 feet, so we "extrapolated" our expected performance data. As I recall. it was a 13000 foot gravel runway. We rolled and rolled and rolled, finally rotated the normal amount at what we thought was lift off speed, but the airplane didn't leave the ground as we expected it would. So we rolled and rolled some more. Finally we (you) pulled the yoke back much further and yanked the aircraft off the ground after we had rolled about 9000 feet!

   We submtted an Operational Hazard Report later about the lack of high altitude performance data and how the airplane had been so reluctant to leave the ground even well beyond our calculated lift off speed.Lockeed determined that at that high altitude our true airspeed as we rolled and accelerated down the runway was very high and that high speed in combination with the gravel surface had created a much larger coefficient of ground friction; therefore a much bigger amount of rotation was necessary to break the airplane away from the ground!

Cheers, Dale Peckman.

 Remember it well. I hated La Paz ... not enough air to live comfortably and dominated by beetlenut chewing Indians. Drive down the mountain was treacherous.

Old Bob Biggs came down to La Paz after our T.O. incident and told me he and Olofson took a C-130 up to 13,000 and simulated our T.O. conditions and concluded that I was late in pulling the yoke back ... should have pulled harder when reaching V1. I said ... I'd be pretty brave at 13,000 ft with plenty of air underneath me ... if it stalls.. plenty of room to recover. He didn't have an answer for that!!! Rotating too soon on a runway could be hazardous to longevity of life.

Jim Kyle

Great memories.