Walked away from this one...

Rodelu

Rodelu

Well-Known Member
I decided to go flying on Friday the 13, just for fun, before the storm move any closer to our area.
I did some slow flight, steep turns, and stalls etc. enough to refresh my skills.
Everything went OK until my way back…First the wind had picked up a bit and now was coming
from the south at 8 kts. (active runway was 9L). No problem, nothing that a little side slip can’t fix…
I call the tower 7 out and he clears me for 9L. After my call, somebody else (corporate jet) calls
10 out, and tower clears him for the same runway. Just as I was increasing throttle to maintain a decent
speed for separation, tower makes me switch to 9R. At this point I’m probably 5 miles out, entering a pattern
that is busy with touch and goes. On a 3 mile final, tower tells me to follow “traffic on base”. I look
and the traffic was at my 2 o’clock about 300 feet higher and still on down wind, so my response was:
“tower: looks like I’m lower than the traffic and closer to the runway”, at that point the tower tells the other
guy to extend downwind and became irritated at them for not turning to base earlier…
Anyways at this point, I’m all setup for the landing, and realized that lowering the flaps to 30 degrees was
not a good idea, so I decided to go back to 20 degrees (bad mistake) I was at 300 feet. After doing this,
I feel the airplane sinking, so I added a little power and lowered the nose; my speed was around 65 kts
and was pretty much aligned with the runway when I begun the flare, and here is that I realize that was
little fast. I touched down flat and ballooned big time!. I think I added a little power at this point, so I would not
hit the gound too hard, BUT I was too fast to begin with, so when I touched down the second time, I started
some weird, kind of strong oscillation up and down on the nose wheel. Right after like the third one I started
counteracting them with the elevator and eventually went away…
It’s the first time that I experience this, so it freak me out. After almost 200 hrs of flying, I had some bad landings, but nothing like this.
I’m supposed to get better with experience right??
I think it was a chain of situations and bad decisions that accumulated, therefore the need to visualize the landing
waaaay before it happens. The retraction of the flaps started a bad chain reaction.
They say that any landing that you walk away from it’s a good, but I don’t want to have another one like this… /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Any input is welcome, Thanks
 
sounds like you did some porposing...done that before and its really freaky because I didn't know how to stop it. Luckilly my instructor was with me and we put the throttles to the firewall and that made us stop. All's well that ends well I guess, glad everything turned out ok ;-).
 
We all have our bad landings... sure, with 200 hours you'd think that the bad landing days are over with, but I can assure you they are not /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm glad you learned from that experience.. that's what flying's all about!
 
Glad you're safe and learned a bit from that experience.. that what it's all about !!


I had a similar experience with the same result coming back from a XC .. porposing ( spelling ?? ) a few times before finally settling back on the runway.. definately one of my ugliest landings by far !! i should have just gone around but I never had it happened to me before and really felt out of control of the situation for a second or two before coaxing her down finally..

Afterwards I had wondered if I just added a bit of power as if I had ballooned a little and just held constant back pressure a little bit to see if that would soften it up a bit and smooth things out..
 
Next time it starts porpoising, go around. It's all too possible for a porpoising incident to lead to a collapsed nose gear or a prop strike. Certainly most of these incidents are recoverable, but the odds of something bad happening go up substantially. Better to add power, go around, and take time to get set up for an approach with the proper speed and approach path nailed.

Chalk it up to another "learning experience". Kudos for posting it here and letting others learn from it also!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Yeap, that was porpoising alright.

It happened to me too. I was flying into an unfamiliar airport (York, PA) which had a displaced threshold. It was gusty so I kept some extra speed in. Well when I reached my touchdown point, I was too fast. Instead of being patient, I forced it down. Big mistake. I bounced once pretty high. This was my second chance to go around but I tried ot save it. So then the porposiing started and by the time I had it under control, I was near the left edge of the runway!

I was so freaked out I had a mechanic check out the nose strut. I was afraid I damaged the wheel bearing or the shock itself. He didn't see anything wrong with it. When I got back home, I told the flight school what happened and that I would pay for any fixes if there were any. They said never mind, these things happen.

However, a couple of weeks later I flew the same plane and saw in the maintenance log that the wheel bearings had been replaced. I hope it wasn't me!!

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Mahesh
 
[ QUOTE ]
...However, a couple of weeks later I flew the same plane and saw in the maintenance log that the wheel bearings had been replaced. I hope it wasn't me!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably not. Wheel bearings won't normally be hurt by that kind of action.
 
SteveC,

Ohh good to hear that. I felt terrible that I flew that trusty old plane in such a manner! I guess all the impact is taken by the tire and the strut so if it were really bad, I would have had a bulge in the tire or a collapsed strut.

Mahesh
 
Hey, I've flown there (York). It's got a nice long 5,280 foot runway. Know why it's 5,280 feet?

It used to be a drag strip.

Kind of cool, huh?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Know why it's 5,280 feet?

It used to be a drag strip.

Kind of cool, huh?

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, I thought a drag strip was usually 1320' + a runoff area. I know of several drag strips with less than 4000' total length. In fact, many years ago I landed at one while visiting a race at an oval track next door.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Hey, I've flown there (York). It's got a nice long 5,280 foot runway. Know why it's 5,280 feet?

It used to be a drag strip.

Kind of cool, huh?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah! It is a nice little airport. I usually stop there on my way to Lancaster, PA or on the way back just for fun.

The runway is quite long, esp for a 172 which makes it even more embarassing to rush and porpoise on a landing. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Mahesh
 
Well, that's what one of the locals told me.

Never thought anything of it until now. Now you went and raised some questions.

Maybe the guy was jerking my chain. I don't know jack about drag racing so when he said yup, this used to be a drag strip, I was like, oh, cool.

Then he went back to the rest of his buddies hanging around the airport and told them, "fooled another one."
 
Thanks everyone for the replies!!
I've seen/heard that term porposing before but had never experience it before, and I don't remember any of my instructors talk about it.
I feel better now that I learned what it was...kind of like when you go to the doctor's office and he tels you..."THIS is what you have..." /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Smilecrunch.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Smilecrunch.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/Smilecrunch.gif
Thanks again!
 
Dont feel too bad about your landing. Ive been in kind of a rut lately where I havent been able to grease any of them in. Ive switched to a low wing, so that may have something to do with it. But after you get your private you feel like all your landings should be nicer than your student pilot days.... they wont be. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/spin2.gif
 
Someone told me that there are only two kinds of pilots. Those that have just had a bad landing, and ones that will have one.
 
"You win some, you lose some."

Consider yourself lucky that you at least didn' thave 142 "backseat drivers" when this happened.
 
[ QUOTE ]
But after you get your private you feel like all your landings should be nicer than your student pilot days.... they wont be. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/spin2.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually if I think back, I think my best landing ever was on the first landing of my first solo! It was so nice. Now they are more like controlled crashes. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

Mahesh
 
I have long strings of good and bad ones. But largely, when you grease it in, people comment on how bad it was. When you prang it on, people comment how good it was.

It's all perception! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
I have long strings of good and bad ones. But largely, when you grease it in, people comment on how bad it was. When you prang it on, people comment how good it was.

It's all perception! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

A couple days ago, I was flying with a student that was really having a hard time stablizing his approach. I explained to him that a great landing always starts with a great approach. So, I took the plane and demonstrated a perfect traffic pattern, and banged it down onto the numbers on the spot - carrier style. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

So, it's his turn and he flies his weird, funky pattern and makes it to the runway - where he makes the smoothest landing I've seen in weeks.

"Good lesson, Timmy - I'm going to eat a little bit more crow now..."

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
LOL.

It was so funny, my CFI had the worst luck with showing me landings. He is one of the best pilots I know and very good but whenever he said "can I demonstrate?", something or the other would happen and the smooth, precision touch down on the 1000 foot marker would turn into a slam 50 feet further.

Then I had this one CFI before the one above who one day covered up the instrument panel with a sectional to teach me how to fly looking out the windshield and not at the instruments. He told be to approach the runway and keep the plane off the ground with him controlling the throttle. BAMMMM! The chief flight instructor was in the runup area watching us and so we quickly split to the practice area.

I thoroughly enjoyed getting my ppl!

Mahesh
 
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