From HerkyBirds.com
The FE has posted the following:-
Ok so now the offical Airforce investigation results are out I can talk about it.
I was the FE on the C130H that snapped the nose strut during a touch and go. and we had a QFI Check Capt in the right seat. It was the second touch and go for the night and as we were powering up past 15,000"lb, we felt a thud as if we hit a fox or Kangaroo(and no it was not a heavy landing)we were past rotate speed so we took it airborne as it was a short outback strip. An inspection of the Strip later by the police showed we did not hit anything.
We left the gear down and I went down to look at the gear through the inspection window. The nose strut was broken off about 6" from the bottom of the chrome. This is a picture you never want to see. The Nose Gear was left dangling only front sissor link and I could see the inside of casting of the front strut as it was tilted back towards me. The gear was just twisting and turning in the breeze.
The hour transit back to home base with the gear down gave us lots of time to work a plan and look at checklists 10,000 feet@160 knots.
We dumped the LOX as there may have been damage to that area anyway on touchdown.
The most suitable Check List to run was the Nose Gear retracted Main Gear Down one, as this gave you some proceedures and guidance on how to fly the approach and what to expect on touchdown. We had planned, or thought that on touchdown, the sissor link would snap and the nose gear break off and we would go down onto the top part of the strut.
If we retracted the gear the broken strut would have caused further damage to the doors and may have jammed later on down selection.
Just to add to the event, on descending into home base the no 1 engine oil cooler flap stuck closed in auto and manual, even tried resetting the CB. We kept the engine running as we really wanted to do a 4 engine touchdown with a broken nose strut,than a 3 engine one. Hey the book says between 100 and 150 deg C they just change the oil, that's a small work load for MX compaired to screwing up the touchdown.
On touchdown God was smiling on us. The mains were on first, the nose slowly holding it at stages,the nose wheels started to spin up and the broken bit of strut rotated FWD into the sissor link. The nose settled some more and the top part of the strut, settled onto the stuck portion of the broken bottom strut. All this on a bulging set of sissor links. We slowly came to a stop, then ground evacuated and yes I did turn the battery off.
End result is a very nose down aircraft but doors still off the ground with no major damage. Crew debrief over a few beers.
Cause .. it appears that it was a manufacturing defect in the strut and it would have happend to someone some day.. I guess that day was tonight and that someone was us.
So next Sim ride, practice that Gear check list, even the unrealistic ones, may one day be real. and dont forget to throw in a curve ball oil cooler flap as well
Chris
That's quite a detailed description of the nose on touchdown. Please tell me there wasn't anyone up the kennel.