Emergency Landing | Baggage Door Blow Off Mid Flight | Model K

[eman1200]

hey MS, he bounced more than 3 times and didn't have a prop strike...…………….!

[Hank]

1 minute ago, eman1200 said:

hey MS, he bounced more than 3 times and didn't have a prop strike...…………….!

Grass runways are different. Off-runway is so different that no one counts bounces unless the altimeter shows a change.  

My only emergency landing so far was after a total electrical failure, back at my (obstructed) home field. But I do go to grass fields.

Red Sky done good!! His copilot even better!!!

[Ibra]

7 hours ago, Hank said:

Grass runways are different. Off-runway is so different that no one counts bounces unless the altimeter shows a change.  

My only emergency landing so far was after a total electrical failure, back at my (obstructed) home field. But I do go to grass fields.

The perks and luxury of having 4 cylinders Mooneys 

Yes bounces on grass tend to slowdown and more forgiving than bouncing on hard runway !

I think RedSky got his technique for grass landing with 6 cylinders polished in previous legs to two grass places: Charlton Park & Andrewsfield before the bag door saga happens? although the grass at Charlton Park is well cut and way smoother than load of tarmac runways 

[tmo]

1 hour ago, Ibra said:

Yes bounces on grass tend to slowdown and more forgiving than bouncing on hard runway !

Now you tell me... ;-)

[Ibra]

1 hour ago, tmo said:

Now you tell me... ;-)

Have you tried soft field landing technique on tarmac (not sure why one do that? ) 

 

[tmo]

My plane lives at a grass strip and I swear that every take-off is a porpoise or three - it starts wanting to fly, but can't quite, yet, and it settles back...

[Ibra]

27 minutes ago, tmo said:

My plane lives at a grass strip and I swear that every take-off is a porpoise or three - it starts wanting to fly, but can't quite, yet, and it settles back...

I am assuming it is a long bumpy grass runway? On takeoff you may want to cross the controls a bit while rolling on bumpy grass (even with no crosswind drift to correct for), that sideslip does prevent the aircraft from flying after hitting ground bumps and works better than fiddling with pitch control (forward sideslip dumps pitch/gear PIOs. on high power) while improves directional stability, and then only centralise rudder/ailerons when you think she is ready to liftoff and leave the ground 

Obviously, costs you long ground roll but I finds it better than trying to sort my takeoff bounces with elevator on high power and getting behind it

If short grass runway, then....(sorry, don’t think there are that many backcountry 6 cylinders Mooney pilots, they have electric flaps so I don’t think any advices on this topic are worth a penny )

Edited June 5, 2020 by Ibra

[tmo]

It's not bad, but it's not a billiards table... Rated for up to 10000kg. There is one spot that usually gets me, if not flying before I get to it, and only when 09 is active. The runway is fairly long, 1200m normally, now around 800m as we wait for grass to grow (literally), but no obstacles to speak of. I'll try the cross-controlled method; till now I've been timing the power to be slow enough, which also works. Thanks

[Bentonck]

On 6/3/2020 at 7:03 PM, flyboy0681 said:

Let me be the dissenter here for a moment and just throw this out. Acting simply as the devils advocate here, was it the correct decision to set her down immediately, regardless of the facility or condition of it? Wouldn't the prudent thing have been to access the flight characteristics, and if the aircraft was responding fairly well, set course for an airport that had a long,  wide runway and emergency services? The way he was bouncing around on landing I was sure he was going to bend the prop as well as other metal.

Just thinking aloud and would like to hear from others on this different approach, no pun intended.

I absolutely think he did the right thing in putting it down ASAP,  where he could.  He had a BAGGAGE DOOR, STUCK TO HIS ELEVATOR.  I looked through the POH and this is definately NOT addressed.  I understand how you might want to see how the airplane is flying and assess characteristics and maybe fly to a big airport....I will take next available.  You can see him trying to control the airplane right after the door departs....look at the damage the thing did, he absolutely needed to get that airplane on the ground, ASAP.  Structural damage does NOT get better in flight.

If something is bent but not broken (yet), I WANT IT ON THE GROUND.  I am 100% sure I would have done the exact same thing.  Maybe not as well....

[HRM]

14 minutes ago, Bentonck said:

Let me be the dissenter here for a moment

 

14 minutes ago, Bentonck said:

He had a BAGGAGE DOOR, STUCK TO HIS ELEVATOR.

'nough said.

[Bentonck]

On 6/2/2020 at 6:49 PM, RedSkyFlyer said:

I thought I would share the take off and landing into & out of Charlton Park. (private estate of The Earl of Sussex & Berkshire, not too shabby!) 

As you can see both were bumpy but nothing unusual for a grass strip, most notably the hatch door remains shut. 

Awesome footy.  Now my wife wants to go to England to meet y'all.

[tmo]

The Southern Atlantic Route

[RedSkyFlyer]

4 hours ago, Bentonck said:

Awesome footy.  Now my wife wants to go to England to meet y'all.

I have a free prepaid parking space at EGFT, perfect fit for a Mooney If you can make it across the pond! ;) 

Anyone have experience in a Aviat Husky? Looks like a fun stock gap whilst the Mooney’s I’m the shop (estimated 3-6 months depends on how difficult it is to get parts) 

ps we are in the second hand market looking for a J/K tail & a Cabin hatch door if anyone has a spare kicking around....

 

 

[EricJ]

5 hours ago, RedSkyFlyer said:

Anyone have experience in a Aviat Husky? Looks like a fun stock gap whilst the Mooney’s I’m the shop (estimated 3-6 months depends on how difficult it is to get parts) 

 

I did my tailwheel training in a Super Cub, which is very similar but 30hp less.   Very fun, and highly recommended.

[flyboy0681]

Something strikes me as curious, but before I state it I want to say that when the adrenaline is flowing, we tend to resolve a problem in the most expedient manner. A few years ago I was cruising along in the Mooney when the engine started running rough and vibrated to the point where I thought she was going to break out of the mounts, so I know how it feels when things are starting to look bad. That said, according to the coordinates on Flightware, he set her down at an airport called Membury Airfield, which does sit in the middle or a solar panel farm and right beside the M4 Motorway, which we see passing under the nose just as he's about to land. The thing about Membury is, it has two paved runways and another grass strip is very long at 3,200 feet. I assume he knew where he was and opted for the grass one that he did because it was plenty wide and easily identifiable, but I may have gone for the 3,200 foot strip considering the air sock seen to the right on the video was pointing right down the other one. Again, in an emergency things get foggy and like I said, any landing that you can walk away from...

[carusoam]

This would make a great topic for conversation at A Mooney Summit....
 

So many decision points in a very short time... with great success...

PP thinking out loud...

Best regards,

-a-

[Paul B]

18 hours ago, flyboy0681 said:

Something strikes me as curious, but before I state it I want to say that when the adrenaline is flowing, we tend to resolve a problem in the most expedient manner. A few years ago I was cruising along in the Mooney when the engine started running rough and vibrated to the point where I thought she was going to break out of the mounts, so I know how it feels when things are starting to look bad. That said, according to the coordinates on Flightware, he set her down at an airport called Membury Airfield, which does sit in the middle or a solar panel farm and right beside the M4 Motorway, which we see passing under the nose just as he's about to land. The thing about Membury is, it has two paved runways and another grass strip is very long at 3,200 feet. I assume he knew where he was and opted for the grass one that he did because it was plenty wide and easily identifiable, but I may have gone for the 3,200 foot strip considering the air sock seen to the right on the video was pointing right down the other one. Again, in an emergency things get foggy and like I said, any landing that you can walk away from...

Here is the Membury airfield chart, landing was indeed on the longest runway 13 running parallel to M4, turning slight right towards the end, crossing 17/16.

[flyboy0681]

1 hour ago, Paul B said:

Here is the Membury airfield chart, landing was indeed on the longest runway 13 running parallel to M4, turning slight right towards the end, crossing 17/16.

I hadn't seen this chart and wasn't sure which strip he actually landed on. In the original post he stated that he headed for a 770 foot strip, which is a whole lot shorter than 3,200.

[Hank]

1 hour ago, flyboy0681 said:

I hadn't seen this chart and wasn't sure which strip he actually landed on. In the original post he stated that he headed for a 770 foot strip, which is a whole lot shorter than 3,200.

I assumed after watching the video that he meant 770 meters ( = 2526 feet). But I'm impressed that a private field has three runways!

[Ibra]

 

9 minutes ago, Hank said:

But I'm impressed that a private field has three runways!

Seems most UK ex-RAF airfields were 3 grass runways, once they get sold to some private hands some of the runways get paved or partially/fully decomissioned, this one is still used by southern sailplane (a local dealer for Schempp-Hirth gliders) 

 

 

 

[flyboy0681]

Most of the posts here are about the door construction but not deconstructing the video. While I have high praise for the pilot bringing the ship in in one piece with no injuries, watching it closely does act as a learning tool. It was mentioned that he dropped the gear at the very last second, but what I was concentrating on the most was the airspeed, which over the threshold appeared to be between 95 and 100 knots and explains the very long landing and incredible amount of bouncing. Luckily he stopped in time to stay out of the trees.

Like some here, I study a lot of NTSB reports carefully not only to learn what may have happened (sometimes we don't know what actually happened), but what I can learn from it. What I learned from this video is that he appeared to have full control over the aircraft after departure of the door and the initial thud, but not sure why he came in so hot.. really hot. That in itself could have ended things in a really bad way.

 

[Shadrach]

17 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

Most of the posts here are about the door construction but not deconstructing the video. While I have high praise for the pilot bringing the ship in in one piece with no injuries, watching it closely does act as a learning tool. It was mentioned that he dropped the gear at the very last second, but what I was concentrating on the most was the airspeed, which over the threshold appeared to be between 95 and 100 knots and explains the very long landing and incredible amount of bouncing. Luckily he stopped in time to stay out of the trees.

Like some here, I study a lot of NTSB reports carefully not only to learn what may have happened (sometimes we don't know what actually happened), but what I can learn from it. What I learned from this video is that he appeared to have full control over the aircraft after departure of the door and the initial thud, but not sure why he came in so hot.. really hot. That in itself could have ended things in a really bad way.

 

Wasn’t pitch Control affected by the door getting hung up in the elevator? Perhaps he felt the extra speed offered extra control margin.

[tmo]

An elevator with a cargo door stuck on it and preventing full free movement doesn't exactly suggest full control.

[flyboy0681]

Just now, tmo said:

An elevator with a cargo door stuck on it and preventing full free movement doesn't exactly suggest full control.

Again, watch the full video very carefully and be objective. At no time after the initial departure of the door did he struggle with the aircraft, not once. Looking at the altimeter he initially entered into a controlled decent, gained altitude and held it, then started on his way down to the airport. The yoke was moving freely in and out and as you know, it takes very little movement to make large corrections. At no time was anything unwinding. These are elements that investigators look at when reviewing flight recorder data. If I had not known what the situation was and just watched the video after the door blew off, I would say everything was quite normal.

[Ibra]

38 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

but not sure why he came in so hot.. really hot

A simple theoretical explanation: even when you cut the throttle completely when landing with 10kts-15kts tailwind, you will tend to gain a lot of indicated airspeed IAS as you descend through tailwind gradient (tailwind is slower as you go down near the surface that gets converted into IAS) or when hit by tail gusts (10kts? 20kts?), the effect is very pronounced as you flare...the same as you add few kts or MPs when landing is gusty headwind days, you may need to take few kts or MPs off when landing with tailwind...

Maybe something to try on a long runway, get on a day and land with 15kts tailwind and record your speed over the threshold, theory is a bit confusing (same as the yoke position and how to kick wind correction or keep in control over the ground)

At some point it gets impossible to avoid an overshoot on 3* deg approach slope unless you fly it dead on stall speed, but I am not suggesting that when a bag door is sitting on the tail for the control reason @Shadrach mentions (unless you stall it in the air that day there is no way you can know the stall speed on that aircraft, maybe 95kts IAS?)

The only learning bit is land into wind anytime but as far I can see that tailwind landing was safe...

Edited June 8, 2020 by Ibra