Primarily for general aviation discussion, but other aviation topics are also welcome.
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By Grumpy One
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553445
Great report Clearprop1 and much relieved.
You caused a lovely scare amongst us fellow Bournemouth RV'ers (and of course others),
There was much texting last night, the topic being, "What would we have done".
Of course, now having read your report, we'll have to revise our thoughts. instead of relying on incomplete/incorrect information.

Well done though and glad you're safe.

ps Perhaps I should now give renewed consideration in regards to my fitting of an "Anti-Splat" nose strut thingummybob
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By leiafee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553465
matthew_w100 wrote:Two questions then:
2) what proportion of the sky-gods here would have turned the engine off and cut the fuel once a further go-around became unlikely?


Non Sky god but not me. Stick and throttle would have wanted my full attention. Swapping changing hands mid-roundout and hold off would not have been within my personal capacity I'm pretty certain.

Insurer's problem if I shockload the thing, not mine, by that point!
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By leiafee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553466
MercianMarcus wrote:Thanks for posting your description of events and welcome to the club of those who have crashed and survived. You will no doubt relive the events over and over, but try not to beat yourself up about things you might have done differently.


Yes - be gentle with yourself - there's always things you could have changed - those are for next time, this one can be dealt with and let go.
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By TheFarmer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553469
Nice job of dealing with the situation @Clearprop1

This is not an Armchair AAIB comment (I abhor all that stuff), but a general comment/question about nosewheel RV's....

I'm rather surprised how easily it flipped over onto its back, even with such a slow forward speed at the point when the nosewheel dug in. The pilot nicely kept the speed as slow as possible when the nose wheel went down, and there seemed to be quite a strong wind on the nose too, so it was a lot slower over the surface than it might have been.

Therefore, with what appeared to be a relatively small amount of inertia, it went over so easily, and that surprised me a bit.

I understand all about the main gear being set further back for n/w configurations on aircraft with optional t/w or n/w set-ups, but with such a sleek and low canopy on RV's (I assume for drag reasons), then I don't really like the way that an easily flipped over machine means that the occupants are then pretty helpless until help arrives.

It would certainly make me nervous about landing an RV(A) at an unmanned site on my own.

As for switching the engine off to save it, I can't help feel that it would have been a futile thing to do with three blades on there as at least one of them would have made contact with the ground wherever the engine compression stopped.

To the OP...

Don't let it affect your flying. Get back in an aircraft and fly asap. After my EFATO I was nervous for a couple of years about engines stopping without warning, and you may well now be the most diligent nosewheel pre-flight checker in the world now that you've experienced the potential effect of a failed one!

Whatever, the point is that you're a much more experienced flyer after this week's incident than you were this time last week, and that can only be a good thing.
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By ClearOfCloud
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553508
Thanks a million for sharing and delighted your safe!

I don't' think you could have done anything differently in terms of how you handled the crash-landing

I'm with @leiafee .....if you had the capacity to do fuel/engine shut off, great, but much better that you flew it all the way in.

Well done. .....here's to handling my emergency as well you did.

David
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By patowalker
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553514
Ben K wrote:
patowalker wrote:Had I known the nosewhell was damaged, I think I would have preferred to return to Bournemouth and land on the hard runway.



Implying that this pilot knew his nosewheel was damaged....?

Wot Lockhaven said.


No. Just stating what I was prepared to do if it happened to my SportCruiser, a type which was known to have a weak noseleg.

It was obvious that neither the pilot nor AGCS knew the extent of the damage, as he landed next circuit and was not asked to await arrival of the emergency services.

It is dissapointing that those who observed the bent noseleg did not include someone able to alert the pilot or the 'tower'. Even waving a shirt on the runway could have helped. (Yes, I know I'm sitting comfortably at my keyboard and we are talking about Old Sarum and not Deanland, but ...)

PS Scrolling with my thumb sometimes results in accidentally hitting the 'Like' button.
#1553599
patowalker wrote:
Ben K wrote:
patowalker wrote:Had I known the nosewhell was damaged, I think I would have preferred to return to Bournemouth and land on the hard runway.



Implying that this pilot knew his nosewheel was damaged....?

Wot Lockhaven said.


No. Just stating what I was prepared to do if it happened to my SportCruiser, a type which was known to have a weak noseleg.

It was obvious that neither the pilot nor AGCS knew the extent of the damage, as he landed next circuit and was not asked to await arrival of the emergency services.

It is dissapointing that those who observed the bent noseleg did not include someone able to alert the pilot or the 'tower'. Even waving a shirt on the runway could have helped. (Yes, I know I'm sitting comfortably at my keyboard and we are talking about Old Sarum and not Deanland, but ...)

PS Scrolling with my thumb sometimes results in accidentally hitting the 'Like' button.


Fair enough.

@Clearprop1 - good to meet you on the day; I was the chap who met you in the tower subsequently (who had been following you in on final approach).

Many thanks for your frank, full and open report - as others have said, no need for a confession.
#1553608
I'm really glad the pilot is OK and thank him for his posting his thoughts on here for everyone to read/learn from. It is great to see 'open and honest' reports like these from fellow GA pilots. Thank you :thumright:

Moving onto the nosewheel Vans RVs I remember this from 2010:



In my opinion nosewheels designed for speed appear to be weak for un-paved runways. This comment is not just aimed at RVs but also any free castering nose-leg types like Grumman AAs, LongEZs, Tecnam 2008, AT-3, etc... I recall an AT-3 having its nose leg fold up on RAF Halton's grass runways several years back. Further, to me, all the extra inspection, non-destructive testing and extra maintenance costs associated with spindly noselegs means, personally, I would always go for a taildragger or an aircraft with a beefy oleo leg on the front (yes, I know they fail on occasion). I certainly wouldn't regularly operate any of these on grass - that's just my personal viewpoint.

Best

Gaz
#1553611
It was brave of the pilot to post an honest account of the events. It was also wise to stop rumours before they started.

I am a huge fan of Vans aircraft as most people know but I can't understand why he sold his soul to the devil and started putting the 3rd wheel at the wrong end .
Clearly it was to sell more aircraft and bring in more sales , there are no other reasons as it does nothing to improve performance or handling of a type that states both of those things to be their goals.
Buying an RV is not a cheap thing to do , factoring in a tailwheel course as part of ownership is hardly going to make any difference. The benefits are out of proportion to the costs and the added satisfaction of flying an aircraft that flies and handles as it was originally designed to be rather than a dumbed down version with a major inbuilt defect or weakness is ( IMHO ) stupid.
Rob P, TheFarmer, Joe Dell and 2 others liked this
#1553620
To balance the tail wheel v nose where discussion (and not related to this thread's incident), I reckon there have been plenty of successful landings of RV A models on grass....

And castoring nose wheel set ups are not unduly difficult to maintain. After all, there isn't a great deal of design difference between an RV tail wheel spring/fork/wheel assembly or the nose gear of an A model, it's just the nose leg is longer!

Edit to add: Perhaps the appearance of the RV A models was a result of the skygods much purported myth of skygodness skills required to tame the tailwheel.

Certainly when I started flying our RV-6 I was nervous, having had minimal tail 'undercarriage' experience - mostly on gliders!

I especially remember the terrifying thought of cross winds.

As it was, I flew it quite happily and successfully for nigh on 200 hrs with up to 15 kts across the runway. No special skill required, just a well sorted undercarriage setup.
#1553658
hatzflyer wrote: The benefits are out of proportion to the costs and the added satisfaction of flying an aircraft that flies and handles as it was originally designed to be rather than a dumbed down version with a major inbuilt defect or weakness is ( IMHO ) stupid.


Actually, what is stupid IMHO is to classify a nosewheel RV, which flies and handles exactly like a taildragger RV, as a dumbed down version.

Because off course no pilot has ever cocked up and flipped or ground looped or taken the prop off a tailwheel version :roll:

Heres one in the states last week:
https://www.facebook.com/LyonCountyNV/posts/1823864054292217

If you are low hours on type, or your currency is a bit low, in a gusty crosswind to a bumpy runway, then you had better be concentrating and ready to go around in either type, or any other plane for that matter.
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By PeteSpencer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1553664
patowalker wrote:Had I known the nosewheel was damaged, I think I would have preferred to return to Bournemouth and land on the hard runway.


Interestingly, in our well documented tow-bar incident a few years ago when the retracting nosewheel in our Arrow gobbled up the towbar and jammed the NLG fully retracted, the decision was taken by our group member and a shepherding instructor and examiner who had heard the R/T and flown up to formate on him to assess the damage, was to eschew the hard runway of a nearby airport in view of a crosswind, and to divert to a local grass airfield where one of the grass runways was directly into wind.

He pulled off a good landing, the old girl slowly dropped her nose and slid along on her chin for a very short distance and came to a halt without flipping.

Two thoughts: The Arrow weighs a tonne, and with fully retracted NLG there was only a small amount of (3blade) prop, well forward , to catch on the grass, so less risk of a flip with lowish groundspeed.

Peter
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