Hard Landing

M

mgpilot

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Matt
So today I went flying on a nearly cross country (46nm there and back) just to pass some time. On the way back into the home airport, I was about 4 feet above the runway, settling into ground effect and bleeding a little speed, when all of a sudden the 4 feet went away and I hit pretty hard. It wasn't a stall, as I was still +10 or so from stall speed full dirty, and the nose didn't drop off.

I'm just curious what caused this. Was it basically a downdraft? I had felt one on short final, but I still had several hundred feet under me so no big deal. Also, is there anything I could have done differently? By the time I started to go around I was already down.

As an aside, I visually inspected all three struts upon taxiing in to find no damage. I also called the mechanic and asked him to come by the airport tonight to inspect as well (no one else was scheduled to fly the plane today anyway). Anything else I should've done here?

Thanks for the advice.

Matt
 
mgpilot said:
So today I went flying on a nearly cross country (46nm there and back) just to pass some time. On the way back into the home airport, I was about 4 feet above the runway, settling into ground effect and bleeding a little speed, when all of a sudden the 4 feet went away and I hit pretty hard. It wasn't a stall, as I was still +10 or so from stall speed full dirty, and the nose didn't drop off.

I'm just curious what caused this. Was it basically a downdraft? I had felt one on short final, but I still had several hundred feet under me so no big deal. Also, is there anything I could have done differently? By the time I started to go around I was already down.

As an aside, I visually inspected all three struts upon taxiing in to find no damage. I also called the mechanic and asked him to come by the airport tonight to inspect as well (no one else was scheduled to fly the plane today anyway). Anything else I should've done here?

Thanks for the advice.

Matt
Click to expand...

Could have been windshear - a change in the relative wind. You had a headwind, that disappeared, or something like that. Gusts will do that to you. Lotsa fun!
 
Most likely the result of getting so far on the backside of the power curve that the sink rate with power off went out the bottom, and that does happen well above stall speed. Typically when that occurs, you've lost sight of the far end of the runway over the nose. Without having been there, I can't say for sure what went wrong, but I'm guessing you got the nose up too high too far from the ground. That usually comes from having too much speed on final so you overcontrol pitch in the flare, but that's just speculation based on experience.
 
When I land like that it's usually a gust of gravity.

Dan
 
Yes, get the nose too high and you bleed airspeed very quickly. But it all depends on the airplane you're flying and its flight characteristics in that part of the envelope. Some planes will float and float and then drop like a rock. Others will sink in gradually. My Cardinal is a sinker, but the stabilator has lots of authority even at normal flare airspeed so if you're not real gingerly with it, up goes the nose and you end up plopping it in.

If I feel the bottom dropping out and I'm too high, I add just a touch of power immediately and hold the nose where it is. 95% of the time that will cushion my touchdown, though I end up using more runway. Using more runway is okay with me as long as I have enough. It's more important to be nice to my airplane, than to make every landing a short field landing.
 
I did that once. Here's a picture of the G-Meter afterwards....
g_meter.jpg

No damage to the plane...impressive, when you consider the only shock absorber on the landing gear is the tires.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
I did that once. Here's a picture of the G-Meter afterwards....
g_meter.jpg

No damage to the plane...impressive, when you consider the only shock absorber on the landing gear is the tires.
Click to expand...

I set off an ELT like that once.
But not as bad as the severe turb at Elmira (NY) that triggered the ELT in flight....
 
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