"Greg Esres" wrote in message
news
A solo student (not mine) had a landing accident today. Landed on the
nose wheel, porpoised a few times, and stalled the airplane in a
slightly nose down attitude. The student was unharmed, but the
aircraft is totaled.

Had the student been trained specifically about porpoising? I ask because
(as far as I can recall) porpoising was never mentioned before my solo, or
even by the time I got my Private certificate. When I eventually did
porpoise an airplane (C172), I didn't immediately understand what was
happening. After the first bounce, the plane was just a few feet above the
ground, and I expected it to settle down. After the second bounce, the
porpoising was more pronounced, and I then recognized the phenomenon--not
from my training, but from a cartoon I'd seen somewhere that showed a
porpoising plane making progressively higher bounces before crashing
nose-first. That changed my expectation of what was about to happen, just
in time for the third bounce, which left me ten feet above the runway with
the bottom starting to drop out. But that was a situation I'd been
trained for, so I instantly added power and landed gently, with no damage.
(I later learned that pulling way back on the yoke is a good way to stop the
porpoising.)

Our flight school has been moving towards an all-new aircraft fleet.
It it wise to be putting solo students out in a $170,000 airplane?

A student who isn't ready to risk a $170,000 plane isn't ready to risk her
or his life.

--Gary