Nose Gear Collapse at OSH this morning

I wonder how many E/ABs go home in a U-Haul truck?
 
labbadabba said:
That said, T-tails land fast...
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Are you putting that forth as a general rule?

Being higher out of ground effect, I suppose they’re somewhat less effective. But properly designed, I’ve found them to land no faster than “conventional” tails. Though when they do stop flying, I think they do so more abruptly.
 
He's not the first pilot to run out of yoke.
 
Did anybody else notice that it looked like the gear only came down after he entered the frame on the video, so maybe only 10 feet off the ground. If that's the case, maybe the nose gear wasn't locked in correctly.
 
The Arion Lightning is a fixed gear airplane. It looks like the nose wheel and the right main gear were lined up in the first part of the video so it appears to be retracted.
 
FormerHangie said:
It wasn't that big of a bounce, I'm surprised it broke like that.

Pilot did seem to be in a hurry to get all three wheels on the pavement, I wonder if he was feeling pressured to clear the active. Kind of wound up doing the opposite, I would say.
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I think...

He missed the first dot because he was way too fast and then tried to salvage it.

Then it floated because he was way too fast and he saw the next dot coming up and panicked that he shouldn’t be flying down to that one.

Tried to push the nose on to the ground.

And I bet there was nobody in front of him, either. He was just totally freaked that he missed his intended landing point by hundreds of feet, and was out of ideas.

So he pushed.

That bent airplane started on final, twenty knots faster than he should have been and he never got it slowed down to landing speed.

Every time I’ve been to OSH I’ve seen people diving for their dot.

Seen two ground loops, a prop strike after one of the ground loops, and countless porpoises that weren’t as violent as this guy’s, but were a sign of lack of airspeed control, nevertheless.
 
The lesson for me is that I'm not a precise enough pilot to fly into OSH yet. But then, I guess not everyone who goes there is either.

I can imagine myself making that approach too fast too, and stressing about it. I'd like to think I'd be together enough to go around, but probably so does everyone else who didn't actually do it.

Does OSH get a lot of go-arounds? How much does that screw things up with the huge traffic flow there during busy times?
 
On that thought I wonder how many pilots choose to fly up there throughout the year just to practice that type of landing?
 
At first glance it looked ok but once I took a better look there was a lot of bouncy bounce too bad. That’s going to be expensive.
 
jallen0 said:
On that thought I wonder how many pilots choose to fly up there throughout the year just to practice that type of landing?
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You can practice anywhere. Just choose a fixed point on the runway. Doesn't have to be in Wisconsin!
 
It's not a bad idea to practice a "Class B" approach in your bugsmasher. Traffic and/or ATC permitting, and a long runway, pretend you've been told there's a jet behind you and you've been asked for max speed on final. Practice what you need to do (e.g., power reduction, gear, flaps, slips, etc.) and when you need to do it, to smoothly and safely transition from that max speed to a safe, minimum-speed touchdown right where you want it, and without exceeding gear or flap limit speeds.
 
jallen0 said:
On that thought I wonder how many pilots choose to fly up there throughout the year just to practice that type of landing?
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Katamarino said:
You can practice anywhere. Just choose a fixed point on the runway. Doesn't have to be in Wisconsin!
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Ummm yeah, this.

Hitting a spot is hitting a spot.

But sometimes folks get so fixated on hitting a spot at OSH, they bend their airplanes for no good reason.

Especially when they’re cleared to the near dot/runway threshold, there’s nobody else on the runway, and they panic and force the airplane on for no safety reason whatsoever.

Folks need to remember that essentially what they’re doing with the dots and squares is making two runways out of one.

You can still use up a bit of “your” runway portion without bothering anyone further down it at all. And even then, they’re landing on their dot or square and rolling out the same-ish speed the same direction, so you’re not going to hit them if you aren’t overtaking rapidly, so you have a little time and room to fix it.

That video above, he was pushing it a bit for me and into go-around territory if there was an aircraft landing ahead on the next geometric figure, but with nobody ahead? Just make a normal landing and let that airspeed he didn’t control properly bleed off first.

You don’t have to be a super-pilot at OSH. There’s a lot of room between the geometric shapes. They’re big runways.

You do have to land somewhere within the normal checkride tolerances of the certificate you hold, though. :)

When you hear the “keep your speed up, keep your speed up” that’s the people who don’t aim like the second geometric shape was the “beginning of their runway” way up there ahead, and they lower the airplane so they’re a few feet off the ground and drag it to the far symbol.

Airspeed control and a normal glide path to your dot or square works good. People just get all discombobulated by the activity level and “immediate” instructions like “turn your base now, you’re cleared to land on XYZ symbol.”
 
Pilawt said:
It's not a bad idea to practice a "Class B" approach in your bugsmasher. Traffic and/or ATC permitting, and a long runway, pretend you've been told there's a jet behind you and you've been asked for max speed on final. Practice what you need to do (e.g., power reduction, gear, flaps, slips, etc.) and when you need to do it, to smoothly and safely transition from that max speed to a safe, minimum-speed touchdown right where you want it, and without exceeding gear or flap limit speeds.
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And go around as soon as things don’t seem right. You’ll get more practice with the final approach slow-down dance that way on top of being safer.

I thought about painting a dot on my home runway but instead I used the point where the grass runway crosses the paved one as my practice touchdown point. And every landing between home and Oshkosh (there were 4) I picked a point on the runway and pretended it was the dot I was told to land on. By the time I turned final for 36R about 2 seconds after being changed from 36L, I felt good about touching down on the red square with no drama. I’m not a very good pilot, but I am a very good advance planner. I should check when I ordered my tie down kit for this event but it was probably more than a year ago.

Oh, by the way, I also loaded my baggage compartment and rear seat up with the weight of stuff I had planned to take with me when I practiced my 90-knot power settings in different configurations and my landings. I would have flown at 1800 MSL for all of that except that’s a ways below ground level at home.

What I’m saying is simply that anyone can safely approach and land at Airventure, if he prepares a little bit for it. And anyone can ball it up in front of a half million people at Airventure, if he fails to prepare. To fail to prepare is to prepare to fail.
 
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