RV-9A accident TwinFalls, ID

[yakdriver]

An RV9 departed the runway shortly after touchdown at the Twin Falls, ID airport. He took out a taxi light and flipped upside down when the nosegear dug into the dirt. Pilot was Richard Migas of Eunamclaw, WA. He had a pretty good head laceration but is OK otherwise. My friends that helped him and helped remove the wreckage said there was no skidmarks or obvious reson for the plane to veer off like it did. Wind was light and variable at the time. We do get some strange winds around here at times so who knows. At least Richard seems to be OK. Don

[prkaye]

I presume the title of this thread should be "RV-9A..." (instead of RV-9).
Yikes, another nose-over. Being a nose-dragger guy, these are really starting to worry me. I really wish Vans, or some 3rd party vendor, would offer a kit for a larger nosewheel mod, which would probably really help with this. I have already decided not to fly off soft fields in my -9A because of the apparent frequency of these noseover events.
A couple of questions:

1) How many tri-gear RV nose-overs have there been in total? Of these:
a) How many on hard-surface runways
b) How many with the new fork design

2) What is the frequency of these (how many in the last year, in the last 5 years?)

3) How does this compare with the number of nose-overs of other tri-gear GA aircraft (Cessnas, Katanas, Grobs, Pipers, etc)?

[hydroguy2]

Originally Posted by prkaye

.....

a) How many on hard-surface runways
.........?

You'll notice this accident occurred on a hard surface RY. Also to be fair if you leave the runway in any aircraft all bets are off. I know of a Rocket which left the RY, snapped off one gear leg and the left wing is the only thing that kept it from flipping over.

[Ron Lee]

My answer is avoid soft surfaces. I recently went to Baja California (Mexico) and did land on one dirt strip but did not go to Laguna San Ignacio since I heard it might be too soft.

While at it, evaluate how many taildraggers had landing accidents (ground loop).

[aerhed]

I've only been in like 3 -A models, but they were all real light in the nose. The 6A's I've been in were really nose light. So why the noseovers? Is it some sort of PIO that gets people dug in? Or is it just little wheels and big badger holes?

[yakdriver]

Phil It doesn't look like the nosewheel caused the departure from the runway but dug into the soft dirt off the runway and broke the nosegear off. I'll go look at it today and report back. If you fly your A model properly you will probably never have a problem with the nose wheel. Most are caused by too high of landing speed and not holding the nose wheel off until slowed down. It seems like the majority of the tri gear pilots I fly with let the stick go to neutral on touchdown and also taxi on grass strips without holding full up elevator. Don

[Jamie]

Guys...no need to freak out over the nose gear on this one. He LEFT THE RUNWAY. We don't know what he ended up in. Dirt? Sand? Mud? Did he hit a ditch?

The real question here is...why did he veer off the runway?

[kentb]

I had a friend with a Stinson (read taildragger) that left the end of the runway and flip right over. He wasn't hurt and has sense fixed it back up and is flying it now.

It doesn't matter what kind of gear you have under your plane, if you leave the runway you have a real good chance of damaging something.

In his case he landed on a short grass strip, but a little to hot and when off the end with his brakes on.

Kent

[scard]

Originally Posted by aerhed

I've only been in like 3 -A models, but they were all real light in the nose. The 6A's I've been in were really nose light. So why the noseovers? Is it some sort of PIO that gets people dug in? Or is it just little wheels and big badger holes?

The -9A and -7A are quite a bit heavier on the nose gear due to difference in geometry compared to the 6A. The heavy Hartzell C/S prop doesn't help one bit either. However, that being said, I wouldn't suggest that "normal" -9A or -7A nose gear load is the reason for most nose over incidents either.

Tanya gets real mad when I beat on her about absolute directional control on (or above) the runway...

[yakdriver]

The area off the runways is very rough at Twin. You would be hard pressed to keep any small wheel airplane upright out there. Don