Sport Pilot Talk

Pawlander · Joined: 20 Jan 2009 Posts: 39 Location: Pawleys Island, SC

Plane and Pilot posted a terrific column today featuring a video of a Remos landing that resulted in a nose-gear collapse.

The pilot put together a really good review video that can be useful for all of us flying light sport aircraft.

http://www.planeandpilotmag.com/pilot-talk/light-sport-hangar-flyin/2010/02/nose-gear-collapse-post-mortem.html

The YouTube video is from May 2009, but I hadn't run across it so figured others might have missed it, too. Please excuse if it is old news.

CharlieTango · Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2010 9:05 pm Post subject:

I looked at the video. The comments fault a stall above published stall speed.

That's not what I see what I see is a nose wheel contact.

yozz25 · Joined: 18 Dec 2009 Posts: 185 Location: vegas

Really hard to tell, I was gonna say "that's me", but ct gave it away saying it was 09.

Can't tell, but in any case, even if it was the nose wheel, isn't there some room for error built into this thing?

It was a long ride down the runway, perhaps the pilot was fed too much info, see how the insttructor was pointing all the way down, whereas you have a plane going long distance here, perhaps there was no emphasis on just to keep the stick back back back to gently land on hind legs.

They can analyze all they want, but seems more likely he hit nose down, concentrating on looking far ahead, neglecting to keep nose gentley up.

yozz
Stuff happens.

Pawlander · Joined: 20 Jan 2009 Posts: 39 Location: Pawleys Island, SC

CharlieTango wrote: I looked at the video. The comments fault a stall above published stall speed. That's not what I see what I see is a nose wheel contact.

I don't see a stall either.

Daidalos · Joined: 12 Feb 2009 Posts: 71 Location: North East

I don't see it either...

What I see is:
Bad Approach = Bad Landing

It must be difficult to be an instructor. Students learn from their mistakes but you can't let them break the airplane. This seems like a low time primary student to me, sorry but I blame the instructor.

Jim Stewart · Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 111

I don't think it was a stall either. I suspect the sight picture for the Remos would be similar to the CT, and to do a full-stall landing the airspeed has to be less than 40 knots and nose *way* up in the air.

I question the quality of the instruction given. The pilot seems to ignore angle-of-attack in his analysis indicating that he's never been taught. Five feet above the runway with airspeed piddling away is no time for the instructor to talk about issues other than getting the plane down or going around.

This landing is a textbook case for being mentally prepared to go around. If he had held the stick still and firewalled the throttle, the Rotax would have pulled his ass out of trouble. Been there and done that.

yozz25 · Joined: 18 Dec 2009 Posts: 185 Location: vegas

Being that he hit with nose wheel, and being that stall is unlikely, the instructor said it was his fault and he is right.

From my point of view, one error some instructors make is to feed too much info at a crucial moment, confusing student, and even confusing himself. At these moments an instructor has to balance himself to being very aware of what's going on with craft attitude, and at the same time being very cool at getting the student to do the right thing without overwhelming him. Landings and takeoffs move fast, this is where the instructor has to be at his best.

This landing was too long IMHO, instructor was concentrating on teaching to look way down runway, while not concentrating on making sure nose is positioned correctly.

I've caught my instructor telling me to step on left rudder when he meant right, change instructions in midcourse of maneuver. Instructors get confused, especially on the iffy maneuvers of take off and landing.

yozz

tadel001 · Joined: 12 Mar 2007 Posts: 222

1) That approach with that long of a runway is certainly a situation in which a good landing can be made. In fact, that type of landing approach is the perfect approach to teach a student sight picture when landing. The instructor is pointing down the runway. This is the correct thing to do. You want the pilot not to look 10-20-30 feet in front of him. You want him to look down the runway to judge his high and flare. Having excess speed near the runway to allow some floating on a very long runway is a good way to demonstrate this sight picture. I do not think this was a good around situation.

2) Watch the video 5 more times...you will see a relatively subtle but sudden pitch moment just before the plane contacts the ground. If the airspeed was 30 kts, I think most of us would have said this was stall on the runway. However, given the high airspeed, we all say this wasn't a stall. Take the airspeed indicator out of the equation and re-evaluate. Is that subtle but sudden pitch moment a stall? I would defer to the student/instructor in the cockpit for the complete feel. I don't see something that definitively says "no, not a stall."

3) Nose wheel bounces happen. Sit at a training airport on a nice saturday and you will see people rolling down the runway on the nose wheel. It should take a lot of force to break a nose wheel off. Bent rims, axles, etc. are understandable but nose wheel struts shouldn't break off (maybe bend...) on a hard landing.

4) If there was an unpredictable aircraft response, i.e. stall at 53 kts, then it is really hard to blame the instructor for this. If the student suddenly pitched forward only 5 feet off the ground, it is hard to blame the instructor for this unless the student was landing well beyond the appropriate phase of his flight training.

The video definitely makes it hard to tell exactly what happened so I think you have to defer to the witnesses to help fill in the facts. Just my thoughts...

yozz25 · Joined: 18 Dec 2009 Posts: 185 Location: vegas

I agree teaching to look down runway is essential, too bad we don't have sound to this, hear what instructor was saying.

Teaching landing, something in the bones of the experienced, is difficult. Those few seconds before touchdown move fast, here the CFI has to be on the ball.

I think many factors may have come into play here, a subtle movement either by student or CFI could have put the nose on ground, just don't know.

I've taught driving many years ago in University, very difficult getting student to maneuver through traffic , one second you're on the road, student hits gas in panic/confusion, bingo, you're on sidewalk and can't even believe car can jump curb so fast.

These things happen in "close" situations, where minute adjustments with the flick of a wrist can put a nose down. The brain wrist connection can be easily shorted by a split second of indecision/confusion.
yozz

roger lee · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:44 am Post subject: Nose wheel landing

I must have watched this a dozen or more times. It wasn't a stall. It was a nose wheel landing. He never was parallel to the runway. He looks like he is right at about 50 knts or so on the first hit. Everyone was so busy looking down the runway they forgot to arrest the descent and level off. He was still descending on that hard first contact. I would like to know what flap setting he was using, too. The Remos lands just like a CT. I'm with you ED. No stall here, just a nose wheel landing.

CharlieTango · Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2010 11:06 am Post subject: Re: Nose wheel landing

roger lee wrote: I must have watched this a dozen or more times. It wasn't a stall. It was a nose wheel landing. He never was parallel to the runway. He looks like he is right at about 50 knts or so on the first hit. Everyone was so busy looking down the runway they forgot to arrest the descent and level off. He was still descending on that hard first contact. I would like to know what flap setting he was using, too. The Remos lands just like a CT. I'm with you ED. No stall here, just a nose wheel landing.

i just watched several more times and agree, nose wheel landing and failure to control vertical speed before contact. at least thats what i see.

i also see that drift (roll) wandered continually from the approach but don't think that was a factor. alignment and nose wheel alignment might have contributed to the failure.

my 2 cents

zdc · Joined: 22 Jun 2009 Posts: 58 Location: leesburg, va

Not a stall, but a landing without enough flare. This is contrary to conventional wisdom, but the best way to judge your height above the rwy is to look over the left side of the nose directly in front of you. Look down the rwy to judge alignment.

rfane · Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 179 Location: Sunnyvale, CA

I don't see a stall either. What I do see are:

1. A failure to round out and flare, resulting in a very hard contact of the nose wheel. I'm surprised this didn't result in a large bounce.

2. Airspeed was as high as 85 KIAS on short final.

3. Must have been a decent crosswind as well, based on the aircraft consistently drifting left of centerline. Correction input must have been by rudder only, as I see no bank into the wind.

My guess was he was too busy focusing on getting it straight, that he didn't flare. He also probably had quite a bit of right rudder in at contact, resulting in the nose wheel being turned away from the direction of travel, resulting in the gear leg snapping. Had the nose wheel been aligned with the direction of travel, I think we would of seen how they tried to recover from a fairly high bounce.

yozz25 · Joined: 18 Dec 2009 Posts: 185 Location: vegas

After looking at it again, blown up, many times.

Yes, too high, too fast, floating down the runway. He felt he had to force this landing I believe. Speed indicator from what I can see is just too fast. He should have made contact more towards center of runway, perhaps felt the pressure to get down. but he had the extra pressure of keeping straight and level. Too much for newbie.

Same thing happened to me this past week, came in high, a bit higher than this, but at lower speed, instructor said we can bring it down, I said NO, she said "you sure?, "yeah", so we aborted and went around. I don't like to be pressured. The runway is over 8000, but why knock myself out? the whole idea is to make life easy.

However, I was watching the instructors hand, he pointed straight as to "look straight ahead". Then he tapped his fingers on dash, as to say, "get it down", maybe not meaning to.

Student saw from corner of eye tapping of finger down, and he brought it down, hard on back wheels, bounced, instinctively pushed stick forward.

So he was in rush to get down for some reason, airspeed to high, why bother?

he was too high, combined with high speed, why bother? What's the rush?

this landing was a pressure job.
yozz

FK9Skyline · Joined: 11 Apr 2006 Posts: 74 Location: Miami, Florida

Although i haven't posted in some time i've been keeping tabs on the forums. while browsing by Dan johnson i came across the
video we've all watched. First thing its always a sad thing to witness any bird crack up however more importantly no one was hurt!
Im sure that ship will be back up in the air in no time. Its an amazing thing that we have this video "black box" where we can review
the anatomy of this mishap. I have a few questions and will be commenting on video & members postings. First a little background...
i'm a sport pilot instructor flying in S.Fla in a Fk-9 MK IV & have been instructing for 11 years on both land and sea.
Instructing is a rewarding and challenging experience & I can understand why the instructor assumed responsibility. The break down
in my thought process...

Aircraft type:Remos G3 600; with that downloaded the POH **note difference between G3 & GX** the approach speeds listed
& recommended are between 65kts & 48kts or to quote the POH pg 44 section 7.8 "set the elevator trim to neutral position
and set carb heat to warm as necessary. When entering final we recommend est an airspeed of 52 to 55 kts and extending
flaps to 40 pos." Stalls with CG forward are @ 38kts 15 pos flaps as noted on pg 45 sec 7.12. I have checked both POH's
& there is no mention of operations for flight with doors off. These are observations that needed to take place to put
the story together.

When I look at the video i see the aircraft on a steep approach to landing; however i want to establish the office conditions;
i see the doors are off helping to explain all the wind noise & some of the vibrations. I also see there isn't a hand on the
throttle to the far left. **Note** i'm aware the student has his hand on the center throttle which is the same on the Fk-9
i teach in which has both left & center throttles; however i keep my hand on the center throttle while i teach with the
student having control on left hence the red flag for me. As the video continues there is marked vibrations the airspeed is quite high esp when you reference
apprch speeds from POH which then segue to trim & flap position; what are they...you can see the student uses his thumb
to adjust the flaps in an attempt to steepen the approach path which its exact position isnt known until just before the video
transitions to slow motion for which it is at approx 15 degrees. More importantly i see the trim position...full forward.

The approach continues and i can see on the right they are dumping almost 1000 fpm while pushing the airspeed for Vfe.
Video continues as i can see airspeed is dropping and sink rate starts to ease i watch and freeze frame @ :52 seconds in
this is the moment just before the first impact and they are still sinking hard @ almost 500 fpm and full trim forward.
There should not be any confusion as to what was to happen the next second later with impact on the nose wheel at over
50 kts. The student set the aircraft up to impact the nose.

I would like to know the prevailing weather conditions out that day; how much time has the instructor had in light
sport aircraft and TT in remos aircraft; how much time has the instructor had with flight operations with doors off
along with student TT & time with doors off. Whats the big deal about the doors being off & the lack of the instructors
hand on the throttle? Simple the aircraft bleeds off airspeed quickly with the extra drag; this can setup the aircraft
to be "behind the power curve" rather quickly as noted by the VSI @ :52 seconds into the video. The instructor can be
seen putting his hand over the students hand in an attempt to add power or reduce power which takes time for which would
not be necessary had his hand been on throttle to act in that moment. I can not see what both the student and instructor
where looking at in the 5 seconds before impact however the instructor makes motion to look out down the run way to "center
it up". This could change the focal visual reference of the student further out where he would be unaware of the situation.
It may have cause the instructor to himself misjudge the sink rate? These are the details that we dont fully know.
My reflections on this; had it been me; full preflight discussion on the effects of the aircraft without doors & its aero
dynamic effects reverse command effects etc; more emphasis on airspeed/energy management less on nailing a spot; there was ample runway and getting
it centered up at the last moment which tends to distract a student. Look forward to the discussion ahead! :)