210 down in Namibia

[The Ancient Geek]

Coarsening the blades won't stop the prop.

Indeed, it will extend the glide range and the engine will keep turning at reduced RPM, around 1500 if my memory serves but it was a long time ago. OTOH if something in the engine has grenaded it could well lock up in which case there will be no oil pressure for the prop. But that is a much rarer occurrance.

I was taught to always pull the prop to fully coarse as the first action if the engine quits to buy some time to sort it out or find a suitable place to land.

[lilflyboy262...2]

Whats confusing me is, look at the wingtips... How do they get like that?

Is that is rolling onto its sides as it was sliding to a stop? I would have figured that it would just groundloop if that happened.

[SloppyJoe]

Yes you are obviously an armchair pilot as don't seem to know anything about what happens to a prop upon ground contact. If it was producing thrust it would be bent forwards not backwards.

[Doodlebug]

There are skid-marks in the foreground of the picture, leading out from the nose of the airframe. Seems plausible that the aircraft ground-looped, coming to rest with it's nose pointing in the general direction of the initial impact. Damage to one wingtip is almost always a given, maybe a rock/ridge/dip lurched the aircraft back the other way in mid-spin, causing damage to the other tip? Must have been very rough.

Remember when V. planted 310 V5-LYM (I think it was LYM?) 21 nm out of Rooikop one night en-route from Strydom about 15, 16 or so years ago? That night both tip-tanks departed (as they are designed to do) as the airframe ploughed along.

[SloppyJoe]

It also looks as though there is a huge gorilla in between the two cars parked in the background. Maybe it was in fact a normal landing but the gorilla did not like the paint job, it made him angry and he decided to destroy the Cessna ripping the prop off and rocking the plane so hard with the left wing tip it bent that side up and damaged the other side. The occupants were lucky to get away from the beast but due to the cargo load of bananas that it discovered during the ransacking of the aircraft they managed to slip away unnoticed.

[ByAirMail]

Just because everybody walked away does not make anyone a hero. At best this is what you get trained and paid for. At worse, you fly in weather you should not be in, run out of fuel and do an average forced landing. Lets wait for the report. But to say "hero" every time someone walk away, either by skill, luck or because of a situation they put themselves in ?

[Doodlebug]

Sloppy, unless a friend of mine was embellishing the story I understand that a wayward Harvard clipped the water at Langebaan in a bygone era, producing forward-bent tips. A clear sign of low-level fun gone wrong over the Atlantic surf, I was told.

However: how can a 210 belly in under power at flying speed and slide with the engine still turning over, but produce a forward-curled prop? I understand the logic of the tip bending forward, see above, but what about the subsequent dragging along the ground? No sarcasm intended, please enlighten me, always happy to learn something new

[SloppyJoe]

I am not an accident investigator so cant say for sure but know that a prop under load bends forwards on ground contact. Its to do with most of the thrust being generated in the outboard region of the blades not by the hub. I have flown many types of prop aircraft and when I start on a new type I read lots of accident investigations on the NTSB database relating to that type. They determine that an engine is under load by looking at the damage to the engine internals and also the prop, if it is bent forwards it was under load, if it is not it was probably not producing much thrust.

[Doodlebug]

Neither am I an accident investigator, just a regular line-pig who once got his lucky break in that glorious place, SWA/Namibia. But I do still have contact with some engineers in Windhoek who very definately are. I will make some enquiries, this is an interesting question.

Might be a quicker way:
There was a notorious go-around performed in Eros by R.K. on his V5-KIN, before he sold it. (210) He clipped the tips before he realised he was missing something, and went around to successfully put the gear down and land! No idea which way the tips were bent, though, anybody? This was on 01, i.e. tarmac. Come on you ex-118.7 controllers, now in Germany and the U.A.E., any idea?

To the other gentleman: I don't think anybody's screaming 'hero'. I think most on here are simply very pleased to hear that there haven't been any more fatalities. There have been too many down there, recently.

[SloppyJoe]

In that case, during landing the prop was probably not producing much thrust. It is quite rare for a prop to hit the ground whilst producing power, prop strikes on landing usually bend the tips backwards as the engine is at idle. The times when they usually get bent forwards are during an established go around when the prop strikes or during a cfit. A windmilling prop would have the same damage, pretty much, as one at idle.

[Doodlebug]

''It is quite rare for a prop to hit the ground whilst producing power, prop strikes on landing usually bend the tips backwards as the engine is at idle. The times when they usually get bent forwards are during an established go around when the prop strikes or during a cfit. A windmilling prop would have the same damage, pretty much, as one at idle.''

I agree with that logic. Which is probably why all bent props I've ever seen were bent either backwards or backwards and sidewards, but never forwards. The story of the forward-bent prop-tips on the Harvard that alledgedly touched a swell tickled my interest exactly because I'd never heard of it before. The reason I asked about the V5-KIN incident is because it became famous as a result of the aircraft's actually being at takeoff-power while the prop was in ground contact - that's how low he'd gotten! In other words, the statement: ''In that case, during landing the prop was probably not producing much thrust.'' does not seem apply in this particular instance. I'll try to find out more.