Narrative:

I was cleared to land runway 16 with a clearance to do a short approach from a right downwind with a long landing to taxiway foxtrot. The runway is 6700 ft long; and my aircraft is an airplane that only needs several hundred feet; foxtrot taxiway is over halfway down the runway. A biplane was cleared to takeoff just before my landing clearance while I was still on midfield downwind. I saw the biplane taxi into position for takeoff and I started my turn; the biplane actually waited to push the power up; probably due to an MD80 that had landed earlier; so when I rolled out on a short base he was trundling down the runway. I still had good separation but that biplane lifted off very slowly and flew down the runway at 200 ft. I rolled out behind him and landed with 3000 ft of spacing on him; but the tower gave a turn to ensure that 3000 ft. No real problem as far as a conflict; but it made the tower nervous. Lessons relearned: 1. When someone is cleared for takeoff do not assume they are going to start rolling right away. 2. Biplanes are very slow aircraft! 3. When making a short approach use extra care; you have less flexibility to adjust (in this example lengthen or widen) your approach to deal with unexpected developments. 4. Take care of your aircraft first; there was another MD80 awaiting takeoff behind the biplane and I waited to get in quickly so he could takeoff and not sit there just burning gas holding short. Thanks for your time and I appreciate the analysis of these reports and the resulting contribution to aviation safety.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: General aviation aircraft made a short approach; which resulted in ATC issuing a departure aircraft a turn to ensure needed lateral landing separation.

Narrative: I was cleared to land Runway 16 with a clearance to do a short approach from a right downwind with a long landing to taxiway foxtrot. The runway is 6700 FT long; and my aircraft is an airplane that only needs several hundred feet; foxtrot taxiway is over halfway down the runway. A biplane was cleared to takeoff just before my landing clearance while I was still on midfield downwind. I saw the biplane taxi into position for takeoff and I started my turn; the biplane actually waited to push the power up; probably due to an MD80 that had landed earlier; so when I rolled out on a short base he was trundling down the runway. I still had good separation but that biplane lifted off very slowly and flew down the runway at 200 FT. I rolled out behind him and landed with 3000 FT of spacing on him; but the tower gave a turn to ensure that 3000 FT. No real problem as far as a conflict; but it made the tower nervous. Lessons relearned: 1. When someone is cleared for takeoff do not assume they are going to start rolling right away. 2. Biplanes are very slow aircraft! 3. When making a short approach use extra care; you have less flexibility to adjust (in this example lengthen or widen) your approach to deal with unexpected developments. 4. Take care of your aircraft first; there was another MD80 awaiting takeoff behind the biplane and I waited to get in quickly so he could takeoff and not sit there just burning gas holding short. Thanks for your time and I appreciate the analysis of these reports and the resulting contribution to aviation safety.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.