Amazing video of RV nose gear collapse shot with GoPro

[campi]

Does anyone know whether this RV6-A was a tip - up or sliding canopy? I am also interested in knowing, as Bob asked, what kind of seat belts were in use. I am saddened and surprised by the injuries suffered by the pilot and his daughter. Thanks.

[Planecrazy232]

Originally Posted by philip_g

Man, guess I'll scratch all -a models off my list.

No reason for that. Just as a taildragger needs a certain finesse and technique to land properly and safely, nosewheels deserve the same. No, they are not as robust as a Cessna, and I think that is what leads to some inattention to the delicateness of them.

I do all my taxiing with the stick in my lap, including takeoff and landing (depending on winds of course). I apply throttle and let the nose come off and adjust pitch to keep it there. My landings the nose touches when there's not enough speed to keep it off the ground.

Treat all your landings this way and you will never have a problem. If you do, go around- and practice this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7rqQa1VIwI

[Bavafa]

Originally Posted by Planecrazy232

No reason for that. Just as a taildragger needs a certain finesse and technique to land properly and safely, nosewheels deserve the same. No, they are not as robust as a Cessna, and I think that is what leads to some inattention to the delicateness of them.

I do all my taxiing with the stick in my lap, including takeoff and landing (depending on winds of course). I apply throttle and let the nose come off and adjust pitch to keep it there. My landings the nose touches when there's not enough speed to keep it off the ground.

Treat all your landings this way and you will never have a problem. If you do, go around- and practice this.

This technique has become such muscle memory for me that no matter what plane I am flying, the stick/yoke is in my tommy and take off and landing follows the same process regardless of model, type of runway.

[bobnoffs]

anthony,
i always treated my piper warrior as you say. it is clear though that you sure don't have the margin when you do less than textbook. i know all mine aren't textbook.

[JDeanda]

Many years ago I worked for an aircraft dismantler and noted that he had about a half dozen broken off nosegears for the then-fairly new two seat American Yankees. Not too long afterwards, I got a checkout in an AA-1A with the laminar wing and small horizontal stab and elevator. I’d trained on Cessna 150s like everybody else in the 70s and knew to protect the nosegear. The little Yankee was a bit in the fast side on landing, and easy to porpoise, especially if one landed full stall, as I was taught to do. And then it required anti-intuitive controls to fix... power and actually release some back pressure on the yoke. Certainly much of that was pilot technique, but the nosegear design didn’t help a bit. It’s really just an undampened spring, attached to a short-coupled airplane with limited elevator authority. Later, when Grumman had the type cert those airplanes got bigger elevators and stabilizers and that helped make them much more forgiving. The 4 seat Grummans had similar nosegears but with small shock absorbers, presumably to dampen nose wheel movement. Upshot of all this... I’ve never been convinced that the nosegears on the Grummans and the similar ones on the RVs with tricycle gear were very good designs. They’re light, simple and relatively inexpensive, but not very forgiving of mediocre piloting. I totally get that they’re OK as long as the pilot is reasonably savvy, but that “as long as” is just not very reliable. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Grummans and the RVs, including the tricycle ones, but I’ll always think those nosegears are weak points on all those planes. The pilot if the airplane in the video paid a horrible price for a landing that didn’t look so awful. I’ve made similar, and worse landings in Cessnas and even Grummans. I went around and nothing else Bad happened, but it’s unrealistic to expect pilots to get it right all the time. I see the danger in designing to the lowest common denominator, but my humble opinion... those sproingy nosegears are too far over on the side of good pilots.

[DanH]

Originally Posted by philip_g

the tailwheel pilots will be along shortly to say that they're just better pilots.

Yeah, but the honest admit to an elevated heart rate on a 15G25 day

what I find interesting is I can't say I've seen a sr20/22 collapse the nose gear.

Not collapsed, but I have seen one get bent. In fact, I saw it bent two or three times, and even got pictures!

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...us#post1353376

[philip_g]

Originally Posted by DanH

Yeah, but the honest admit to an elevated heart rate on a 15G25 day



Not collapsed, but I have seen one get bent. In fact, I saw it bent two or three times, and even got pictures!

http://www.vansairforce.com/communit...us#post1353376

that bounce will happen in any slick single when you're too fast and try to force it on. Try that in a mooney and see how it goes. I also don't think it's bent, unless I missed further photos. When it bounced the nosewheel cocked. There's no nose steering or centering mechanism. Optical illusion exaggerated by the long nose wheel pants. Surprised a 20 had the HP to get out of that one. They are DOGS.

See how far forward on the cowl they pivot? I think that's what you're seeing in the pic with the wheel canted left




15g25 is an average day where I'm moving, guess the taildragger is out too. lol. Guess I'll just buy something already on island.

[Fred.Stucklen]

Originally Posted by Raymo

Playing the video at .25 speed shows the nose gear (all of it) began oscillating after the first touch-down, which, though too fast, appears quite gentle. That gear would have failed no matter what the speed, IMO. The damage had already been done.

The Nose gear would not have failed if it had been held off the runway until the elevator ran out of authority. The approach was way to fast, and the nose gear was allowed down too soon. I tell everyone to hold the nose gear off the landing surface until the elevator runs out of authority. And treat the nose gear like it's made out of glass!

[Alchemist]

I always keep the stick jammed in my gut as much as the winds allow me to.
Here is one of my videos you can see the stick movements on take off and landing.

https://youtu.be/ySEHD4EomJc

[N941WR]

Originally Posted by philip_g

...
what I find interesting is I can't say I've seen a sr20/22 collapse the nose gear. I have balked our 22 and had it resonate similar to what this aircraft did, you can really feel it. Sometimes it'll do weird things when the nosewheel is cocked a little when you touch down too. Wind I assume, I don't even know how that happens. I consider it to be of a similar design on the g3 and older sr22.

I have a video on my phone (sorry, I can't share it) of an SR22 that bounced the landing and the nosewheel tucked under on the second impact. Almost identical to the RV-6A. The difference was that the SR22 just slid down the runway.