152 crash at Sussex

[mad_jock]

I wouldn't say that i would say that its when they arrive to fast in ground effect then fanny about. Bleed your speed off outside ground effect and wait to you start to sink and you will be fine. Appart from anything else it takes longer in ground effect to get rid of the excess.

And I am quite the oppersite when flying an ILS everything is cock on and visual approaches are the ones you come steaming in on.

[Booglebox]

I think that teaching people how to recover from a nosewheel-first bounce is very important. I have been very lucky in that all my instructors have been excellent.
A couple of years ago I landed a C172 at EGSR which has a pretty narrow runway - and I hadn't flown a 172 for a while. It also had the old-fashioned ASI where the difference between 40 and 80 kts is about 2mm of needle travel, and it's only really possible to read the speed to an accuracy of about 5kts. These factors caused me to (gently-ish) land on the nosewheel, and bounce slightly.
I applied back stick to stop the next bounce, and made a second landing on the mainwheels about 3 seconds later - no harm done.
Bounces are going to happen. If people are trained to deal with them, far fewer nosewheels are going to be broken!

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by Booglebox

I think that teaching people how to recover from a nosewheel-first bounce is very important. I have been very lucky in that all my instructors have been excellent.

These factors caused me to (gently-ish) land on the nosewheel, and bounce slightly.
I applied back stick to stop the next bounce, and made a second landing on the mainwheels about 3 seconds later - no harm done.
Bounces are going to happen. If people are trained to deal with them, far fewer nosewheels are going to be broken!

You made the correct recovery, but to actually touch nose wheel first as apposed to the proper tail low landing, the attitude of the aircraft had to be much lower then it should be. This is quite a serious error. The problem is that metal is hardly ever bent on the first touch of the nosewheel it is the second or third one that does the damage. That is why I want my PPL students to immediately go around if they feel the nosewheel touch before the mains. For any low time pilot a nosewheel first hit means you have seriously got this landing wrong, the safest thing is to just go to full power, and come around for another go. If everyone did this I bet their would be a lot fewer aircraft with bent nosewheels and wrinkled firewalls.

[STC]

Props

When in Canada it never ceased to amaze me, the number of Cessnas with the wrong prop installed.

[Crash one]

When in Canada it never ceased to amaze me, the number of Cessnas with the wrong prop installed.

Prob because Cessna have run out of the right ones sending them all to UK

[Pace]

That is why I want my PPL students to immediately go around if they feel the nosewheel touch before the mains. For any low time pilot a nosewheel first hit means you have seriously got this landing wrong, the safest thing is to just go to full power, and come around for another go. If everyone did this I bet their would be a lot fewer aircraft with bent nosewheels and wrinkled firewalls.

The reason pilots do this is once they are down they think they are down and try to stop!
The Seneca is a lovely aircraft to land! Flat land it or worse land on the nosewheel and you will get the famous Seneca porpoise or wheelbarrow and she is a cow to land.
The aircraft starts to bounce around the nosewheel, has a mind of its own and the bounces intensify to the point that the nosewheel will collapse.

I was in such an aircraft right seating a pilot who did just that into Lydd and became an unwilling passenger with no knowledge or skills on how to stop it.

Going around while an excellent way out of the situation does not teach you to deal with the situation. Dealing with the situation is important.

Applying power and pulling back into a rotation position will stop the bounces and place the aircraft in the correct situation to resettle onto the runway.

Ok minimal runway and you cannot afford to be fiddling around with runway length vanishing but on a half decent runway there is no need to go around.
There is a need to understand and to be able to handle the aircraft.

How not to get in that situation in the first place?

A lot is poor trimming so pilots come in nose heavy, do not flare properly and as such arrive flat or on the nose wheel.

Trim the aircraft correctly on final! Coming into very short final add more trim so there is a slight forward pressure required to maintain the glide.
Do not be a passenger to your aircraft fly it and there is no need to land flat or on the nose or to go around

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by Andy H

Slightly off-thread, but I am quite interested in Ghengis' suggestions that the RANS community work together to devise a usable POH for the S6. It will be difficult as there are so many variations of the type (different wings, engines, undercarriage, weight, etc) but I am sure it is doable and I'd be keen to participate if Mike H wants to get something going.
Andy

You're all very welcome to my help - I've not written a POH for about 5 years and the practice would do me good.

G

[Contacttower]

A lot is poor trimming so pilots come in nose heavy, do not flare properly and as such arrive flat or on the nose wheel.

Good point Pace. I catch myself coming in without enough back trim from time to time and while I always land mains first on aircraft that have very heavy elevators anyway, like the Seneca, the lack of trim causes a tendency to de-rotate too quickly and bring the nosewheel down very firmly onto the ground rather than gently lowering it.

[cumulusrider]

Try landing a big modern glider 10knts too fast. A combination of low drag, long wings in ground effect and relativly high mass will put you through the upwind hedge. You have to get it right as you dont get a second chance.

[Pace]

You have to get it right as you dont get a second chance.

Cumulus Rider

Can you not just go around for a second go like the rest of us ? Or if all fails pull the ballistic chute system?
Sorry being naughty again

[mikehallam]

Actually there are passable POH already available on the web for the Rans S6 ES and the S6-116. So no owner should be lacking. Their build manual and comprehensive parts list are also excellent refence tomes.
I have copies on file, but don't have their web addresses to hand.

If anyone's desperate PM me & I'll e-mail a copy.
{mikehallam@btinternet dot com}

The problem already discussed above is that the S6 is not one single 'plane but a whole family of models with quite different characteristics, from early microlight through to light aircraft. Engines, e.g. Rotax 503, 582, Jabiru, R912.

The wing too has several sizes long, short, intermediate, plus pull-on & conventional fabric. And (AFIK) has different areas in the UK with bigger ailerons to meet microlight requirements.
Trims are bungee, manual tab and more.
Nose & tail wheel.
Different tails & tail-plane AofA settings can vary too.

The lighter models have a much lower stall <38 mph, but the -116 with 912 is nearly 60 mph clean.

So really there's no such thing as "an S6", it's been around a long time and updates, market requirements and customers' needs have made it so varied.

It's a good roomy, honest machine, no BS, great performance for the money & a credit to the US designer. [Was that Randy Schlitter himself or was he a wise enough entrepreneur to commission the design ?].

My interest and gathered knowledge has really grown from owning the older, delightful tail wheel microlight Rans S4. RansMail grew as a spin off from that, then RansTips. In fact I only bought the S6 for a bit more speed !

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by Pace

Going around while an excellent way out of the situation does not teach you to deal with the situation. Dealing with the situation is important.

Dealing with the situation is important, but I think recognizing the impending nosewheel first arrival and fixing it before it occurs is IMO more important. My experience with teaching low time pilots is that if they lack the ability to recognize the aircraft attitude in the flare is going to result in a nosewheel first touchdown then it not very probable that they are suddenly going to display the skill to gracefully transition the kaboing of the first hit of the nosewheel into a nice tail down touchdown without in the best case a big balloon and an ugly smash down on mains or in the worst case a second insufficient flare, a second nosewheel first touchdown, and a real potential for damage to the aircraft.

Far better IMHO to simply go around and sort out a second better approach to a normal landing. Usually the whole problem started with a rushed or a misjudged too high/too close approach, something that is not unexpected and completely understandable with low time pilots.

[Pace]

BPF

The person I right seated in the Seneca was An experienced pilot yet seemed unable to be anything but an unwilling passenger to the intensifying bucks the aircraft was making.
To me it shows something lacking in training that a pilot gets in a situation slightly out of normal and fails to know what to do.
A go around with a bucking aircraft goes against all your instincts which is to stop.
Whether a student has the wherewithal to identify that they have actually landed flat or on the nose is another question.
The answer is to train pilots not to land flat and correct trimming is part of that.
The go around is part of the technique to rectify the situation but not needed in its entirety to me it's back to the principal of training aircraft driving rather than handling .
Anyway I am not an instructor

[Genghis the Engineer]

Originally Posted by mikehallam

Actually there are passable POH already available on the web for the Rans S6 ES and the S6-116. So no owner should be lacking. Their build manual and comprehensive parts list are also excellent refence tomes.
I have copies on file, but don't have their web addresses to hand.

If anyone's desperate PM me & I'll e-mail a copy.
{mikehallam@btinternet dot com}

The problem already discussed above is that the S6 is not one single 'plane but a whole family of models with quite different characteristics, from early microlight through to light aircraft. Engines, e.g. Rotax 503, 582, Jabiru, R912.

The wing too has several sizes long, short, intermediate, plus pull-on & conventional fabric. And (AFIK) has different areas in the UK with bigger ailerons to meet microlight requirements.
Trims are bungee, manual tab and more.
Nose & tail wheel.
Different tails & tail-plane AofA settings can vary too.

The lighter models have a much lower stall <38 mph, but the -116 with 912 is nearly 60 mph clean.

So really there's no such thing as "an S6", it's been around a long time and updates, market requirements and customers' needs have made it so varied.

It's a good roomy, honest machine, no BS, great performance for the money & a credit to the US designer. [Was that Randy Schlitter himself or was he a wise enough entrepreneur to commission the design ?].

My interest and gathered knowledge has really grown from owning the older, delightful tail wheel microlight Rans S4. RansMail grew as a spin off from that, then RansTips. In fact I only bought the S6 for a bit more speed !

mike.

It's do-able, but the reality will be a basic manual with appendices specific to each airframe - which is how for-example the X'Air manual works.

But the fact is, any aeroplane should have a useable POH, with numbers (operating speeds, stall speed, Vne, TODR/LDR) that are correct for that aeroplane. Okay, I can accept that back in the 1930s things just weren't like that, but there really has been no excuse through the history of the S6.

Indeed, CS-VLA (which used to be JAR-VLA), and BCAR Section S both require it.

Downloading stuff off the web that may or may not be appropriate to the individual aeroplane, and in reality probably isn't, is hardly the way to do things in my opinion. LAA should have been ensuring an appropriate manual on every airframe.

It need not be a long and complex document - in reality it can probably be 20 pages + appendices to hold the engine manual, prop manual, etc. but it still should be there.

G

[Pace]

In the whole speed vs. attitude debate, and which is the most important factor for getting right in the landing it seems to me that there is nothing wrong with arriving fast provided one has enough runway to lose the speed

This maybe slightly controversial but speed has nothing to do with landing all to do with stopping distance and other factors.
While we like to land just on the stall with a slow a speed as possible it is a misconception to attach speed above the stall and landing.

The Citation that had control problems and landed way too fast into Edinburgh.
Had a touchdown speed shown by radar of over 200 kts! surprisingly they stopped on the airfield when the normal VREF is around 105???
If you were good enough you could land your PA28 at cruise speed!
The problem being that at those speeds the wing is still flying so I stress the if you were good enough
It is technically incorrect to attach speed to landing in that way and yes I am being pedantic before BPF jumps down my throat

[fattony]

If you were good enough you could land your PA28 at cruise speed!

I'm confused by that. I don't doubt you're right but I can't see how it's done...unless a nosewheel first (or, at the very least, flat) landing. Surely at cruise the aircraft would be flying with a very low AOA or, if without power, a nose down attitude?

I'm not going to try it - I'm clearly not good enough - just interested in how it might be done.

[Contacttower]

You would need a very shallow approach angle for a start...

[mad_jock]

You can do it.

In the commercial world its sometimes called a drive on. Quite alot of flap zero landings will be like this with just a whisker of nose up with zero flare when you land if not 3 points.

It needs serious amounts of runway and really shag's the gear on heavier types. The tyres are landing at 50-100knts over what they normally do and the amount of breaking they would have to do would normally over heat them and blow the tyre fuses.

TP's arn't to bad because of the straight wing profiles which means less of a range of speeds for stall between clean and max flap. And the fact we can use tons of reverse to slow the cow down.

[24Carrot]

I suspect you also need a hard runway.

On a bumpy grass runway you surely want the nose wheel up as much as possible from touch down onwards, which means you want to be as slow as possible at touch down.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by Pace

BPF

The person I right seated in the Seneca was An experienced pilot yet seemed unable to be anything but an unwilling passenger to the intensifying bucks the aircraft was making.
To me it shows something lacking in training that a pilot gets in a situation slightly out of normal and fails to know what to do.
A go around with a bucking aircraft goes against all your instincts which is to stop.
Anyway I am not an instructor

You raise a few good points here. The first is the propensity for nose wheel first landings vary by type. The Seneca, especially the early Seneca 1's, without the elevator bob weight, are easy to land nose wheel first especially with full flap and a forward C of G. You can get into the situation where even the application of full up elevator in the flare will not stop a 3 point or even slight nosewheel first touchdown. When I check pilots out in the aircraft this is one area I pay a lot of attention to. Personally if the runway is long I make every landing with only first stage flap as it makes it much easier to flare and I also try to manage the load so that the C of G is aft of the mid range.

However the original poster was talking about an accident in a C 152 an aircraft an aircraft where it is very easy to achieve a tail low touchdown. In addition by the time you get to be PIC of a aircraft in the class of a Seneca you will normally bring considerably more flying experience to the table then your average person flying a C 152. From my point of view it is reasonable to expect the response to a problem to vary according to the experience level of the pilot. For a Seneca level of experience not being able to fix an inadvertent nosewheel first touchdown by being able to transition to a the proper touch down attitude in the flare represents an unacceptably low level of skills. For ab initio student or a low hour PPL the case is not as cut and dried. Yes they should be able to fix the situation but the penalty for getting it wrong is going to be bent metal, as is well demonstrated by the accident statistics. There is no penalty for just going around and pretty much invariably the next landing will be a proper tail low one because the pilot will do a better jib of flying the approach after the wakeup call of the nosewheel hit.

One of the reasons we seem to take opposite sides on many issues is that you approach the level of what could be called "mandatory" skills from what to me is the level of an experienced pilot. This approach is certainly correct for those pilots but does IMO address the reality for low timers. For them I feel strongly that a preventative approach to difficult situations is the usually the best response, but their actions will gradually turn more proactive as they gain experience.

The accident stats for nosewheel first landings is fact. Telling pilots to not do that and if they do transition to the proper nose high attitude while in the flare is what we teach now and it is not working. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that a new approach is need and so I teach my ab initio students and new low time PPL's to go around after any nosewheel first touchdown.

However don't get me wrong. We are both in total agreement that every pilot should aspire to attaining and maintaining a high level of handling skills. The difference I think is that unlike you, I have to deal with inexperienced pilots and so I am maybe more cognizant of the art of the possible when teaching low time pilots, as well as knowing that good advanced flying skills only happen after a pilot has mastered the fundamental basic handling skills and so those should be the emphasis during ab initio training