User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 10:29:15 -0700
Subject: Re: hard landing
From: Hal Woodruff <woodruff@swefco.com>
To: <lancair.list@olsusa.com>
Message-ID: <B6074E7A.17AB%woodruff@swefco.com>
In-Reply-To: <20001008041924.AAA11966@ns1.olsusa.com>
Reply-To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
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My thanks to all who offered their condolences on the loss of my Lancair
360. My passenger and I walked away without a scratch, bump or bruise.  The
outcome could have been much worse. And it would have been much better had
there not been the one foot diameter rock landfill along the runway side.
I'm very happy that Lance designed such a strong airframe.

A few questions have been raised as to the flight conditions that day.  The
temperature at Kernville was approx. 65° F.  The altitude of the airport is
2614 ft.  That combines to give a density altitude of 3940 ft.  The ground
speed increase due to density altitude (vs. sea level) was about 8 percent -
or 6-7 knots. 

The airplane was loaded to about 1750 pounds.  The CG was mid range at
27.6".

The wind at the airport was reported as light with a slight crosswind
component from the east.  This was reported by a pilot who had just landed
ahead of me.  On the descent into the valley from the south, we experienced
smooth air, nothing of the sort that was described by Ed Armstrong and so
all seemed "normal" - certainly nothing out of the ordinary.

Here's the last of the emails to Rick.  It reveals a few more thoughts on
the cause of the accident.

>Rick,

>I think that I'll be a Navy pilot from now on.  (i.e. flatter
> approach with more power).  But I do know what you mean when you describe your
approach to RWY 28.  The situation could very well be a severe wind shear on
short approach and blast you down into the wires.  I'd take the side of the
runway in the rocks (as I did) every time over ending up short in the trees
or wires.

>I think the answer for me is to use the runway to my best advantage.  Usually
we use about 2000 feet of runway give or take a couple of hundred.  Instead
of using the first 2000 feet I think that I'll be using the middle 2000
feet.  This way I can have a flat approach with power, clear the trees and
wires with plenty to spare (just like in the steep approach) and land away
from any "weird air" at the end of the runway.

>There's another factor that I've come up with.  I don't know how this might
have played in the situation as I experienced it since it all happened so
fast, but it might have bought me a little airspeed and control.  I've got a
huge amount of experience flying sailplanes - to the tune of over 1000 hours
and probably 400+ landings.  In not one of those landings did I have the
option to hit a "Go lever".  Once you committed to landing, you were
landing. Period.  This may be so engrained in my experience that I doubt my
ability to use the application of power to add airspeed, gain control, or
straighten things out.  Not once had I "gone around" in the Lancair because
the situation wasn't to my liking.  I think that I need to do some training
in balked landings.  My hand is always on the throttle during take-offs and
landings but is it there just to keep my hand close to the flap switch?  (g)
What do they call the balked landing in the Navy? I think that I need to
become more familiar with it.

>Hal

To sum it all up, I think there's three factors that combined to cause the
accident.

1.  Mother Nature dealt me a wind shear
2.  My steep approach angle at a 4000' density altitude airport left me with
little room to spare in stopping the descent in the flare.
3.  I was remiss in adding power at the first sign of trouble.
Experience/training would have cured this.

Hope this helps someone else out there.  Its helped me.  I'll be a better
pilot because of it.  Thanks again to Rick and all the others that have
played their experiences.  I'm sure that I would not have reached the above
conclusions without their help.  Its so easy to blame it on the weather.

Hal

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