Jack Roush Hard Landing at KOSH

The video definitely puts the stills I've seen in perspective!
I guess it just needed to sink a little while it spooled up; I agree that the pitch-up was probably not the best decision, because it seems to have eliminated what little speed margin he might have had.

Looking again at the very beginning of the video sequence, it sure looks like things were definitely not going to end well when he's rolling onto his final leg very low and past the threshold.
 
rottydaddy said:
Looking again at the very beginning of the video sequence, it sure looks like things were definitely not going to end well when he's rolling onto his final leg very low and past the threshold.
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That's actually how that approach (18R) works at Airventure. You start descending on your crosswind-to-downwind turn, fly your base directly at the control tower or the blue dot (which is already 1650' from the runway threshold), turn "final" and you basically finish the turn in the flare and touch down at the pink dot, 3250 feet down the runway.

Okay, so that's the "little bird" way of doing it, the jets don't fly the entire pattern, they come in from the east, hence the left base entry. But you can hear them reminding him to "make your base abeam the tower" so the base/touchdown is still the same. Touchdown on the pink dot leaves you with 4750' LDA which should still be plenty for the Premier.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
"make your base abeam the tower" so the base/touchdown is still the same. Touchdown on the pink dot leaves you with 4750' LDA which should still be plenty for the Premier.
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A good point... they did in fact tell him to fly that base. But it just didn't look right, even with a small jet and more than 4000' remaining. He was already quite low coming out of that base leg, as if he was concerned about having enough runway to roll out on and wanted to get it down quickly. Probably had very little power at that point, too, for the same reason.
I know it's easy to say from where I sit, but he could have gone around before that first slight turn (after the turn to final- not lined up right?), and probably should have. I'm just glad it didn't turn out as bad as it might have, for them and everybody else in the area. Those pilots taxiing past the impact area as it happened must have been freaking out...
 
rottydaddy said:
He was already quite low coming out of that base leg, as if he was concerned about having enough runway to roll out on and wanted to get it down quickly.
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Again, normal ops for OSH. From the base leg to touchdown is 1500 feet, which is mostly taken up by your turn. It really is a turn into the flare.

FWIW, at 80 knots and 30 degrees of bank, turn radius is 954 feet. At 100 knots and 30 degrees of bank, turn radius is 1538 feet.

This is why I really think there needs to be more information about what the approach to OSH is really like - The NOTAM does not prepare you for this sort of thing, the 18R via E-W Road approach was the first one I ever flew into Airventure and it was a real eye-opener.

EDIT: It sounds like the Premier's Vref speeds are more like 120 knots. That would require 40 degrees of bank to get near the 1500 foot turn radius, and a 30-degree bank would result in a turn radius of 2215 feet. According to Hawker Beechcraft, the landing distance required is 3,177 feet. All of the above would be at gross weight most likely, so it could probably have been done OK as light as they were.
 
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It'd be really interesting to see the throttle position / control inputs / N1 speed all on a graph with the time. Wonder if the jet logged that sort of thing.

He had quite a bit of altitude to make that go-around happen. I wonder at what point he truly decided to go around and applied full thrust versus him just pitching up and trying to stay level while he "thinks". The video makes me think he didn't apply full thrust at the time he pitched up. The engines will take awhile to spool but there was no reason a go around shouldn't have been possible there.
 
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jesse said:
He had quite a bit of altitude to make that go-around happen. I wonder at what point he truly decided to go around and applied full thrust versus him just pitching up and trying to stay level while he "thinks". The video makes me think he didn't apply full thrust at the time he pitched up. The engines will take awhile to spool but there was no reason a go around shouldn't have been possible there.
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I think you're right. It was a full sixteen seconds from the time he first pitched up until he crashed, which should have given the engines plenty of time to spool up.
 
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