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Ontario based Mooney lost


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I'm very sad about this.  I've been to Sundridge South River a few times. It's a nice little airpark with two runways, one hard packed turf, and one recently paved 2600'. The airport is surrounded by trees and some terrain depending on the runway.

A friend told me that the accident aircraft porpoised a few times, attempted to go around, and then became inverted and went into the trees.

 

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On 9/18/2021 at 9:34 PM, mike_elliott said:

Clarence,

If you know how to contact the Mooney pilot's spouse and their name, please reach out to me. I think you have my contact info.

Thanks...

So sad..

MIke

 

Mike:  I knew the pilot and had flown with her once in her previous E model, but we lost touch when she left Rockcliffe and moved her J model to Carp (CYRP).  

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So tragic.  I am pretty sure I met both pilots at the last Mooney pizza event at Osh before the pandemic.  We had a table full of women Mooney pilots and air racers and we had a great time drinking wine into the night.  They were encouraging me to make plans to come up and fly the a 99’s Air Rally in Ontario and get serious about participating in the ARC.  They were such positive influences for the Mooney community and the women’s pilot community. 
 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1254346664641357/permalink/4389463531129639/

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/two-killed-in-mooney-crash-during-air-rally-in-canada/?fbclid=IwAR1oZILoSmgnPbZHsOOALNda3XKS1XInYUMiISr7uOQmDke7RmFMqgHoTPg

Edited by Becca
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17 hours ago, Becca said:

So tragic.  I am pretty sure I met both pilots at the last Mooney pizza event at Osh before the pandemic.  We had a table full of women Mooney pilots and air racers and we had a great time drinking wine into the night.  They were encouraging me to make plans to come up and fly the a 99’s Air Rally in Ontario and get serious about participating in the ARC.  They were such positive influences for the Mooney community and the women’s pilot community. 
 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1254346664641357/permalink/4389463531129639/

https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/two-killed-in-mooney-crash-during-air-rally-in-canada/?fbclid=IwAR1oZILoSmgnPbZHsOOALNda3XKS1XInYUMiISr7uOQmDke7RmFMqgHoTPg

I can confirm they were both in attendance at our last Oshkosh Pizza social held in 2019. Very sad indeed. I do not have ways to contact their families. 

Yves

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1 hour ago, yvesg said:

I can confirm they were both in attendance at our last Oshkosh Pizza social held in 2019. Very sad indeed. I do not have ways to contact their families. 

Yves

Thanks Yves, I have made contact with Susan's daughter. The Bill Gilliland foundation has been engaged to provide help and assistance. Thanks to all that have contributed to the foundation to make this possible for not only Susan's family this week, but also for Bjorn Nolting's family in Germany.

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On 9/20/2021 at 8:35 AM, steingar said:

Coulda been me.  I didn't porpoise but bounced hard.  Had I put in the power it could have been the same outcome. RIP.

I guess I don’t understand porpoise or why adding power would cause the crash. Is it because you are slow with little flight control authority and adding full power the p-factor torque is greater than the rudder can overcome and you roll inverted? 

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Just now, Will.iam said:

I guess I don’t understand porpoise or why adding power would cause the crash. Is it because you are slow with little flight control authority and adding full power the p-factor torque is greater than the rudder can overcome and you roll inverted? 

In my case my first bounce was a doozie, can't say why now.  But the damage was done, thankfully I decided to ride it out.  Had I put in the power I would have been dealing with an asymmetrically bent prop and a broken crankshaft.  I would have been adding a bunch of energy with nothing to land in other than the little strip.  Had I gone airborne again it would have been really bad.  Odds are I'd have ended up running headlong into or crashing into trees.  Either way it would have done far more damage to the aircraft and would have probably mangled me.

What usually happens is pilots come in too fast and try and force the airplane down.  The aircraft bounce a couple times, and on the third bounce you get a prop strike as well.  From the sounds of it (and I hope I can be forgiven for my speculation) this is what happened to the accident pilots.  That is, a proposing motion gave them a prop strike.  You're supposed to put in the power and go around when these things start to develop, my guess is they waited until too late.  For whatever reason the engine failed to deliver the expected power on the go around, they slowed and went into a stall/spin which sent them inverted.

It is a simple fact that sometimes adding a bunch of energy to the situation is the wrong thing to do.  There are times when it's better to just ride it out.

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58 minutes ago, Will.iam said:

I guess I don’t understand porpoise or why adding power would cause the crash. Is it because you are slow with little flight control authority and adding full power the p-factor torque is greater than the rudder can overcome and you roll inverted? 

Likely waited until late into the failed landing to go around. Full power at slow speed with a dirty airplane trying to out climb trees. Airplane behind the power curve at high AOA then stall and roll. I don’t know about your Mooney, but I can say that in mine, full power, full flap, gear down, departure stalls are very uncomfortable. They require excessive nose up pitch to attain stall AOA and often produce left wing drop in excess of 90° even with the ball centered...an unfavorable characteristic that can be exacerbated by aileron inputs to counter the roll.

Short field work is not difficult in a Mooney, but it does require discipline. Reluctance to admit that the approach has gone poorly sometimes results in the pilot’s decision being forced by the end of the runway. Too much energy to get stopped yet not enough for a normal positive rate climb out. Add obstacles that need to be cleared and you’re in an awful situation. Much like the aforementioned departure stall but with even less energy.

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Thanks that clears it up. And yes full power landing configuration stalls are uncomfortably nose high and my plane too rolls to the left that is why i was assuming above with the torque of the motor overriding the controls that have little to no aerodynamic energy left to counter the roll. Scary indeed. 

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10 hours ago, Will.iam said:

Thanks that clears it up. And yes full power landing configuration stalls are uncomfortably nose high and my plane too rolls to the left that is why i was assuming above with the torque of the motor overriding the controls that have little to no aerodynamic energy left to counter the roll. Scary indeed. 

Just to be clear though, in most situations, if you bounce reasonably hard once, don’t expect it to get better on the next bounce.  Go around.  In deference to @steingar, there may be situations that you want to ride out (trees, waited too long, etc).  If you go around at the first bounce you’ll generally be in a much better place though.

As a very current corporate pilot, ex usaf instructor, cfi/cfii and with ~700hours in my F model, somehow I bounced a landing a year ago with my wife and 2 kids aboard.  Spooked the crap out of me.  Luckily I added power and went around immediately.  I was on the ~3400’ “short” runway at our field, so full flaps.  Luckily I practice the configured go around because it requires a significant push once you add full power.  No harm done, but looking back, I’m really glad I didn’t try to save the landing and bounce it again.  It can happen to anyone, anytime.

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37 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Just to be clear though, in most situations, if you bounce reasonably hard once, don’t expect it to get better on the next bounce.  Go around.  In deference to @steingar, there may be situations that you want to ride out (trees, waited too long, etc).  If you go around at the first bounce you’ll generally be in a much better place though.

As a very current corporate pilot, ex usaf instructor, cfi/cfii and with ~700hours in my F model, somehow I bounced a landing a year ago with my wife and 2 kids aboard.  Spooked the crap out of me.  Luckily I added power and went around immediately.  I was on the ~3400’ “short” runway at our field, so full flaps.  Luckily I practice the configured go around because it requires a significant push once you add full power.  No harm done, but looking back, I’m really glad I didn’t try to save the landing and bounce it again.  It can happen to anyone, anytime.

I was trained to power up and go around on the first bounce as well.  More recently, I've observed that if you add just a touch of power, you can easily arrest the second bounce and then land normally.  You couldn't do that on a short runway, but it seems to work for me if the runway is long enough.  Curious if others have had similar observations or if this violates SOP.

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I was trained to power up and go around on the first bounce as well.  More recently, I've observed that if you add just a touch of power, you can easily arrest the second bounce and then land normally.  You couldn't do that on a short runway, but it seems to work for me if the runway is long enough.  Curious if others have had similar observations or if this violates SOP.

Very true, power isn’t necessarily required if the bounce didn’t launch the plane real high. But what is always required is to just hold the nose off so that it doesn’t come down and bounce again.
Too often a pilot will subconsciously push the nose down after a bounce has launched them to a uncomfortably high pitch. They often don’t even realize they’re doing it. But its the worst thing one can do since it’s putting the plane into a PIO which is a guaranteed prop strike.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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6 hours ago, DCarlton said:

I was trained to power up and go around on the first bounce as well.  More recently, I've observed that if you add just a touch of power, you can easily arrest the second bounce and then land normally.  You couldn't do that on a short runway, but it seems to work for me if the runway is long enough.  Curious if others have had similar observations or if this violates SOP.

This works well for me. The first time I remember doing it was Landing #2 on my solo flight, on on obstructed 3000' field. Since then, it has also worked for my Mooney, at that same base and elsewhere. Just a touch of power, level off, back to idle and land properly. After a second bounce, go around. Hint:  two bounces, at night, when you're tired, on an obstructed 3000' field, are no fun--cram full power and pray to miss the trees that you can't see because the landing light is aimed up into the starry sky . . . .

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11 hours ago, DCarlton said:

I was trained to power up and go around on the first bounce as well.  More recently, I've observed that if you add just a touch of power, you can easily arrest the second bounce and then land normally.  You couldn't do that on a short runway, but it seems to work for me if the runway is long enough.  Curious if others have had similar observations or if this violates SOP.

This will definitely work, just be careful of the runway length.

One thing to consider is a big bounce may have launched you airborne below your normal flare speeds.  She may or may not be able to flare again without power.  So you can get back to a normal flare attitude but the second bounce might still be worse and lead to porpoising.  Power helps put some extra air over the wing and horizontal stab but could significantly increase landing distance.

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Very sad. Thoughts and prayers for the families.

I have bounced my M20K one time. It was a night landing with full flaps and when I bounced I thought "OH CRAP".......go around power added. Pushed the nose forward and went around. I pay much more attention to my speed across the numbers now. I try to cross the numbers between 70-74 Kts.

Got the @donkaye video and solved my landing problems. Thanks Don!!

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