Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2000 11:10:06 -0700
From: Greg Nelson <gregsays@swbell.net>
Subject: Re: LNC2: Hard Landing Experience
To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
Message-id: <39DF66FE.5E8F7418@swbell.net>
References: <58.18fb790.270f1c8d@cs.com>
Reply-To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
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Rick and Hal:
I'm very saddened to hear of this accident but relieved that pilot and passenger
are safe on the ground.  If you can add a few details to thread, perhaps we can
better understand what perhaps happened. Particularly, what altitudes were the
airports of departure and arrival and do you know if there a density altitude
disparity?  Also we know the airplane was heavy (two people) but was it at or near
(or even over) gross weight at the time of the accident?  What can you surmise
about the CG at the moment of the accident?

I respect both of you (Hal and Rick) and your now considerable flying experience
in the 360-- each of you is flying about three times as many hours per year as I.
We each would like to believe that we are immune to, or protected from, this type
of incident but we are not and therefore, we cannot be too careful!

In the spirit of cleansing myself through personal testimony, I feel compelled to
admit that this past year I had a similar incident which in my case was entirely
my fault, i.e., not the fault of the aircraft but rather was caused by poor
judgment, lack of planning, failure to think, etc.  In my very hard landing, I
bent the aluminum gear casting and hit the tail but not the prop.  I dropped the
aircraft onto the pavement from about 5 feet in the air following a "balloon"
after flare.  The wings lost lift because of insufficient flying speed and that
was due to the fact that this was an aborted gross-weight test in which I was
purposefully flying 30 lbs over the gross weight limits of the plane.  On this hot
summer's day, the engine had already overheated (before takeoff) because of a
delay in obtaining clearance and the winds were quite oblique and gusting.  In
short, in the course of just one flight I made a half dozen bad decisions with a
quite lucky outcome--just a few hundred dollars damage and about 100 hours of body
work.  Also, very serious damage to my confidence and ego.

Think about this now.  A new,  as yet uncertified airplane with a pilot of just 33
hours of LNC2 time, executes a takeoff on an overheated engine.  The overheat
requires a quick abort (a go-around is not possible) into winds that are oblique
and strongly gusting -on an airplane that is purposefully over gross requiring
extra airspeed because of the extra weight, winds and density altitude.  The
engine actually vapor locked and quit on final causing me serious distraction by
having to restart, retrim and realign the plane.

My point is that I have always rather scoffed at others who would permit an array
of preposterous chooses to mess up their day, airplanes and possibly their
health.  I have been supremely confident that I would never make even a few of
these chooses necessary to cause such an incident--but I know better now!  It is
incredibly easy to paint yourself into this kind of corner and the potential
consequences are are always serious.  Don't let it happen!  Maintain a constant
vigil!

I do not at all mean to suggest that Hal has erred in any way on this event.
Rather, I thought it necessary to share my bad judgment with you in the hope of
helping others to prevent accident.

If you truly believe it cannot happen to you, it absolutely will!            Greg
Nelson

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