On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 10:24:08 -0400, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Morgans wrote:
"Dudley Henriques" wrote

In this particular film clip involving the Air Bus, had this aircraft
caught his left tip while initiating a left bank at the airspeed he was
maintaining through the pass, the best guess I'm getting from those I know
who have seen the clip is an immediate nose down moment resulting in
ground impact of the aircraft.
In short, it had all the potential of being a real mess.
After viewing the clip myself, I totally agree with this assessment. It
was an EXTREMELY dangerous moment!
Naturally, there is no way to be absolutely certain of any reaction of the
aircraft, but my money says it was a very bad moment.

A few years back, they were landing on 18 at OSH, and had everyone doing big
180 degree turns from downwind, to final. It was quite windy, and gusty,
and there was a pretty sizeable crosswind component.

The EAA B-17 came in, and right near the last part of his turn, he was a
little lower than he wanted to be. A particularly big series of gust came
up, and he ended up with his wingtip VERY near the ground.


I was taking off on 27 with a direct head wind. The temp was well
above 90 and I had all 4 seats full as well as the tanks. OTOH we were
still under gross for the temp. We had just about reached rotation
when the wind abruptly changed 90 degrees to the left. so it was out
of the south. It was actually blowing us sideways with full aileron
and max rudder. With full aileron and rudder I could no longer
accelerate and we were slowly moving to the right. The wind was well
in excess of the Deb's capability so it was either try to haul it
off and accelerate in ground effect or slow down while letting it
weathervane into the wind which would most likely have taken out the
gear and I had no desire to be sliding toward a tip tank full of gas
while it was being ground up. I hauled it off into ground effect and
the nose slewed a good 45 degrees to the left leaving us going down
the runway sideways. The heads popping up in the north 40 made it
look like a prairie dog town.. Flying with your wheels only a few
inches off the pavement while going sideways is one of those *intense*
moments that seems to last almost forever. Your margin for error is
almost non existent.

The end result nearly had me soiling my pants. I thought for an instant
that I was going to witness a very bad event. As I recall, he actually hit
a runway (or taxiway) light with his wing tip. You can believe that was an
anxious moment for the pilot, and for everyone watching it.

I'm glad the outcome was just a dinged up wing, and no more. It could have
been very bad, indeed.


Catching a tip can go many different ways with the physics. Sometimes
all you get is a scrape, but even then the angle would have to be fairly
flat and the ground flat as well; but most of the time when a sudden
ground contact catches a tip, especially in a turn, the low wing is
descending into the contact rather than glancing flat into it and the
result in that case can be VERY bad!

A few years back I was less than 100 yards from the Corsair that hit
the bearcat on the runway at Oshkosh.. Although the F4U is a big
piston fighter from the WWII era it is tiny compared to this monster.
At 100 yards from the F4U most of us were turning away due to the
heat. Imagine what it'd be like from a few 100,000 gallons of jet A..
BTW when that wing tip hit it dug in.

I also had a very good view of the one wheel landing made by Old Crow
on 36 with a cross wind no less. The pilot did an outstanding job of
holding it on that one wheel until it could no longer stay up. Even
then she fought the cross wind until the wing tip finally left the
pavement. As soon as it touched the sod it grabbed and made that P-51
flip around like a "Frisbee", but at least it was flat and stopped
backwards against the build up for one of the cross taxiways. To me
that appeared to be one outstanding job of flying the plane until it
was parked.

Roger (K8RI)
D
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com