C172S Landing accident

A solo student (not mine) had a landing accident today. Landed on the
nose wheel, porpoised a few times, and stalled the airplane in a
slightly nose down attitude. The student was unharmed, but the
aircraft is totaled.

Our flight school has been moving towards an all-new aircraft fleet.
It it wise to be putting solo students out in a $170,000 airplane?

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 15:15:33 -0500, Greg Esres
wrote:

It it wise to be putting solo students out in a $170,000 airplane?


Sure..., just as long as they're able and willing to pay the $150-200
per hour rent that you're gonna have to charge them to help pay the
insurance premiums.

Greg Esres wrote:
A solo student (not mine) had a landing accident today. Landed on the
nose wheel, porpoised a few times, and stalled the airplane in a
slightly nose down attitude. The student was unharmed, but the
aircraft is totaled.

*sigh*

One time not long after DH learned to fly, we arrived at the
airport to pick up our rented steed.

Uh-oh. News vans all over. Rescue vehicles.

Then we saw it: a C152, perched on the roof of a hangar. In order
to get there, he had to leave the 75 ft wide runway, cross a wide
grass strip to the taxiway, cross a wide ramp, and stall out onto
the hangar roof.

The soloing student was unhurt. He was damned lucky, he could
easily have been killed if he hadn't had a convenient hangar
roof to stall onto.

Our flight school has been moving towards an all-new aircraft fleet.
It it wise to be putting solo students out in a $170,000 airplane?

IMHO, it is unwise to be putting solo students out in any sort of
airplane if they don't "know when to go" (ie, know when to abort
a landing and go around) and have a reasonable safety margin of
proper reactions to a botched landing.

Cheers,
Sydney

Student pilots are safer. Your fleet of
new 172's is in better hands than with
a bunch of weekend warrior pilots who
have to scrape the rust off their license
when they go for a $100 hamburger once
a month.

Ted

Greg Esres wrote:

A solo student (not mine) had a landing accident today. Landed on the
nose wheel, porpoised a few times, and stalled the airplane in a
slightly nose down attitude. The student was unharmed, but the
aircraft is totaled.

Our flight school has been moving towards an all-new aircraft fleet.
It it wise to be putting solo students out in a $170,000 airplane?

"Greg Esres" wrote in message
news
A solo student (not mine) had a landing accident today. Landed on the
nose wheel, porpoised a few times, and stalled the airplane in a
slightly nose down attitude. The student was unharmed, but the
aircraft is totaled.

Had the student been trained specifically about porpoising? I ask because
(as far as I can recall) porpoising was never mentioned before my solo, or
even by the time I got my Private certificate. When I eventually did
porpoise an airplane (C172), I didn't immediately understand what was
happening. After the first bounce, the plane was just a few feet above the
ground, and I expected it to settle down. After the second bounce, the
porpoising was more pronounced, and I then recognized the phenomenon--not
from my training, but from a cartoon I'd seen somewhere that showed a
porpoising plane making progressively higher bounces before crashing
nose-first. That changed my expectation of what was about to happen, just
in time for the third bounce, which left me ten feet above the runway with
the bottom starting to drop out. But that was a situation I'd been
trained for, so I instantly added power and landed gently, with no damage.
(I later learned that pulling way back on the yoke is a good way to stop the
porpoising.)

Our flight school has been moving towards an all-new aircraft fleet.
It it wise to be putting solo students out in a $170,000 airplane?

A student who isn't ready to risk a $170,000 plane isn't ready to risk her
or his life.

--Gary

Yossarian wrote:

...stalled the airplane in a slightly nose down attitude.

Stalled it with a negative angle of attack?

Doug Carter wrote:

...stalled the airplane in a slightly nose down attitude.

Stalled it with a negative angle of attack?

Why do you assume that the attitude of the airplane has anything to do
with its angle of attack?

"Doug Carter" wrote in message
...
Yossarian wrote:

...stalled the airplane in a slightly nose down attitude.

Stalled it with a negative angle of attack?



Stalls can occur in virtually any attitude and at virtually any airspeed.

Attitude isn't the equivalent of angle of attack.

Angle of attack depends on relative airflow, not attitude. It is a very
minute, but important distinction. The aircraft can be stalled by gusting
winds while in a relatively steep dive, or while in "cruise" attitude if it
was reached from a dive too abruptly...

Stall-speeds are approximations that GA'ers use because angle-of-attack
gauges are uncommon, and because they provide an approximation based on
ordinary performance envelope.

Cheers,

Kevin

Your fleet of new 172's is in better hands than with a bunch of
weekend warrior pilots who have to scrape the rust off their license
when they go for a $100 hamburger once a month.


You're probably right about that. ;-)

if they don't "know when to go"

Probably the instructor is at fault, sometimes, when they teach
students how to "save" landings. The student isn't always capable of
determining which should be saved, and which shouldn't. I know I
scared myself once or twice as a student pilot.