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By Anon
Anonymous poster
#1409161
Now I know where at least the bad landings in the AAIB report come from that you just look at and wonder what makes people just suddenly not land well.

The answer is no great mystery - sometimes we just stuff it up!

;)

I managed to break a shock absorber off what initially seemed like a perfectly normal, albeit crosswind approach. I realised at around ten feet that the descent rate was too high and opened the throttle but too late and arrived with a bang. As best I can judge from looking st the damage, the shock absorber bottomed out and tranferred that force to the wheel axle breaking that too. Aircraft subsided onto the remains of that leg and performed a very slow speed ground loop, fortunately minus propstrike.

Affecting factors...

1) First time in the hundred hours or so I've been flying the aircraft that I've ever had it at to all up weight (less the fuel burned on the flight), or really even particularly close to it. I had noted the reduced rate of climb back at the beginning of the flight but not made the corresponding mental note that I would also need more energy to achieve the same amount of lift, equating to more power/speed on the approach. So the speed/energy went away a lot quicker than I expected and I didn't catch it in time.

2) I saw the challange as the crosswind, not the speed/weight

3) I had on previous occasions managed to 'salvage' similar last minute sink with a blap of power and which may have induced some overconfidence that it'd work here too.


Things I'd do differently with hindsight...

1) Think through the ALL the knockon effects of increased weight, not just the weight and balance envelope and the landing length once down.

2) I'm not at all sure I opened the throttle all the way - If I had maybe I could have stopped it before touch down and gone around. However...

3) In my head I was increasing power to slow the descent not to go around, I should have planned to go around.

4) Got the mags off sooner in the susequent runway excursion, might have stopped sooner and done less damage underneath.

I cannot account for why I didn't spot the rate of descent prob sooner or failed to go around promptly enough when I did. My processing speed was just inadequate on this occasion.
By nomodecharlie
#1409252
I know its a cliché but bits of metal can be replaced or repaired, whereas you can't. Glad you are alive and to be honest everything else is a bonus - everything in aviation is expensive though so its even better to hear you didn't write the thing off.

What aircraft is it? And also this may be a stupid question but when you say 'got the mags off sooner', given the friction from departing the runway especially on the damaged gear, surely all the damage was already done and stopping the engine wouldn't have made a lot of difference?