C172S Landing accident

"Greg Esres" wrote in message
news
Had the student been trained specifically about porpoising?

Not likely. Who is, unless it's encountered accidentally during
pre-solo training?

Well, it's something that could be discussed a lot, even if it's not
actually demonstrated (the same way "spin awareness" is taught to primary
students without actually demonstrating a spin).

My feeling is that porpoising is unlikely with a student who is
trained to give a near-stall landing.

Spinning is unlikely too, but both are worth being prepared for.

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

In that past 6 years that I've been flying at this club, we've lost 5
airplanes due to landing accidents, 3 of which were solo students.
Another 172R was badly damaged during a solo student touch and go,
which ended touch and go's for students.

No one was ever hurt duing these accidents, so clearly there are many
more bent airplanes than bent pilots.

Point taken. Overall, only 1% of landing accidents are fatal, according to
the Nall Report. But presumably the fatality rate is higher among accidents
serious enough to total the plane, and the rate of serious injury or death
is higher still. Crashing any vehicle at 50 or 60 MPH is dangerous, and
older airplane cabins have nothing like the crashworthy design of modern
automobiles.

A loss rate of one plane per year (out of 20 planes) is quite high, isn't
it? I wonder if your club is being lax in its training and proficiency
standards. My FBO has about the same number of planes, and I don't think
we've lost any in the three years I've been around (although we did have a
prop strike this year when someone forgot to extend the landing gear).

--Gary

Greg Esres wrote:
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.

Well, there's a balance here. On the one hand, the student
does (IMO) need to be taught how to save a landing, because
something can go awry and the correct reaction needs to be
there. Just pushing in the throttle won't always do it.

OTOH, sometimes this is taught as almost a "normal" procedure,
rather than "when in doubt go around NOW". I think solo landings
should be like landings in a strong crosswind: plan to go around,
and if you find yourself over the runway correctly aligned at
the correct airspeed in the correct attitude, go ahead and land.

But that's just my opinion and I'm not a CFI.

Cheers,
Sydney

Ryan Ferguson wrote:


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


The attitude created by the the tail dropping after the nose wheel
impacts the ground creates the positive angle of attack; airplane flys
again... Terrified student crams the stick forward, lowering the
attitude AND angle of attack and flys the airplane into the ground with
the wing unstalled.

Hopefully the student after repairing the $170,000 airplane will receive
instruction on maintaining the proper attitude after the "bounce."

Since I fly mostly aerobatics I do test the relationship between
attitude, angle of attack and speed rather frequently but those cases
where you can, in reality stall the wing while nose down hardly apply in
this case.

Now if you told me the student was attempting an outside snap roll on
takoff, then we would be there... nose down, stalled (and dead).

Neal wrote:

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.

I've told you a million times not to exaggerate.

They're currently renting for around $100/hr at many places in the U.S.

George Patterson
The optimist feels that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The
pessimist is afraid that he's correct.
James Branch Cavel

Sounds to me like the problem is more with the trainers, not the
trainees...

Greg Esres wrote in
news
Had the student been trained specifically about porpoising?

Not likely. Who is, unless it's encountered accidentally during
pre-solo training?

My feeling is that porpoising is unlikely with a student who is
trained to give a near-stall landing.


Do you mean to say that students perform their landings "to-spec" every
time at 10 hours? I had some very specific discussions about adding power
during a bounce to avoid porpoising down the runway. Maybe I was lucky to
have an instructor who knew what to talk about, although I was his first
full-time student.

IIRC, the topic was listed on a sort-of checklist of things that we
covered in training. We didn't follow it to the letter, but it did serve
as a syllabus to help monitor progress as we went, and to review
periodically to make sure we were on track and didn't miss anything.

Perhaps you should have your club write up something similar...

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

In that past 6 years that I've been flying at this club, we've lost 5
airplanes due to landing accidents, 3 of which were solo students.
Another 172R was badly damaged during a solo student touch and go,
which ended touch and go's for students.

No one was ever hurt duing these accidents, so clearly there are many
more bent airplanes than bent pilots.


Sounds to me like you have been lucky till now. Does your club want to
count on luck to prevent more serious consequences?

Greg Esres wrote:
Had the student been trained specifically about porpoising?

Not likely. Who is, unless it's encountered accidentally during
pre-solo training?

Um, well, I was. Porpoising was described, including what
causes it, how to avoid it, and what to do if it is encountered.

My feeling is that porpoising is unlikely with a student who is
trained to give a near-stall landing.

True. Provided they don't f*** up

In that past 6 years that I've been flying at this club, we've lost 5
airplanes due to landing accidents, 3 of which were solo students.
Another 172R was badly damaged during a solo student touch and go,
which ended touch and go's for students.

Greg, I don't know, but this seems very high to me.

Perhaps pre-solo instruction and procedures at your club are
over-due for review?

Cheers,
Sydney

Sydney Hoeltzli wrote:
/snip/
In that past 6 years that I've been flying at this club, we've lost 5
airplanes due to landing accidents, 3 of which were solo students.
Another 172R was badly damaged during a solo student touch and go,
which ended touch and go's for students.


Greg, I don't know, but this seems very high to me.
/snip/

Actually, this is an *extremely* high accident rate. In the eleven
years I was involved with a very busy flight school, during ten's of
thousand's of student solos *per year*, there was exactly one aircraft
lost due to the student's inadequate control of the situation. I would
recommend the persons in charge of Greg's flying club do an immediate
"stand down", and re-evaluate every aspect of their flight operation
before any aircraft is allowed to fly again.

Happy Flying! (students included!)
Scott Skylane

I wonder if your club is being lax in its training and proficiency
standards.

Possibly. Of course, I'm inclined to agree, because my students tend
to have a lot more hours at any milestone. The earliest I've soloed
someone is at about 17 hours. I've been criticized as being
"excessive."

Terrified student crams the stick forward, lowering the attitude AND
angle of attack and flys the airplane into the ground with the wing
unstalled.

That may have well been what happened, though it's certainly possible
to have a nose down attitude and have the AOA exceeding the critical
AOA.

Porpoising was described, including what causes it, how to avoid it,
and what to do if it is encountered.

Describing porpoising is not "training" in my book, it's merely
"describing." ;-)

Discussion of flying techniques on the ground, which is not followed
by specific maneuvers in the air, is of extremely limited value. I
can't tell you how often a student can describe in flawless detail on
the ground how something is to occur, but his execution in the air
will be radically different.

However, you might describe porpoising as aggravated bouncing; if you
can recover from a bounce, you should never porpoise.