Aircraft Registration        ZS-SNN                                                                                                          

Date of Incident              12 September 2014

Time of Incident              17.10Z

Type of Aircraft                Diamond DA 20-C1 (Aeroplane)

Type of Operation            Training (Part 141)

PIC License Type               Student Pilot

Licence Valid                     Yes

Age                                      34

PIC  Total Hours                52.1

Hours on Type                  52.1                  

Point of departure           Fisantekraal (FAFK)

Intended landing             Fisantekraal 

Accident site                    Fisantekraal

Met                                   20°C: 250/10:CAVOK

POB                                   1+0

Injured                               0            

Killed                                   0

Synopsis                                          

The student pilot was engaged on a navigation exercise when the incident occurred. During the approach for a landing on runway 23 the student pilot flared the aircraft too high and the aircraft landed hard and bounced. The student pilot finally landed the aircraft after a few more bounces. The aircraft sustained damage on the nose wheel and the propeller blades. The student pilot was not injured. 

The investigation determined that the student approached too high and too fast, the aircraft landed hard and bounced, causing the student pilot to lose control of the aircraft.  

Jim’s Comments

Yawn… BORING!

Absolutely right it’s boring as hell – it keeps happening, and it really shouldn’t because it’s so easy to cure. Strangely, it’s more a procedural problem rather than the handling problem it appears to be. And it’s nothing to do with aircraft type, it happens to Cherokees and Cessnas and Musketeers and Cirri and Diamonds and and and…

When you see an aeroplane behaving like a porpoise – it is doing exactly that – it is NOT bouncing. Aeroplanes don’t bounce. If you pick one up with a crane to the height of a hangar roof, and then drop it – I promise you it won’t bounce – not even a little bit – it will splat.

So when you see one doing increasingly large kangaroo hops it’s about to crash – the nosewheel will collapse and, depending on the surface, the height of the hop, the degree of the pilot’s ham-fistedness, and whether it is a high-wing or a low-wing configuration, it will go on its back.

If this happens to you please think before you unfasten your safety harness in a hurry because that will cause you to fall on your head. Pilots have died from broken necks in this way.

Let me tell you what’s going on when someone says the aeroplane bounced. I promise you it did not bounce.

  • The wheels smote the runway.
  • The pilot got a skrik and yanked her off.
  • The pilot got another skrik and shoved her down.
  • She hit the runway nosewheel first.
  • The pilot got an even worse skrik and hauled her off again
  • She sailed into the air.
  • The pilot really didn’t enjoy this so he pushed her down again.
  • And so on until each brief flight is higher than the last and each descent steeper.
  • The nosewheel mount snaps off.
  • This decreases the angle of attack so much that she can’t fly again. Perhaps ever.

Why would a pilot be so stupid as to do all that pulling up and pushing down business? Surely that’s a handling problem and not a procedural one?

Well it’s poor procedures that put him in this situation in the first place, and poor training that hasn’t taught him how to recover before the first return to earth. So let me tell you how to sort out the problem – either before it starts, or at any point during this ridiculous bunny hopping business. It’s really easy.

You level the nose and smoothly apply full power and enough right rudder to keep straight.

Notice I didn’t tell you what to do with the stick – that would be very poor instruction – I told you what to do with the aircraft. You must do whatever is necessary with the stick to get the nose level. At the same time smoothly take full power and enough right rudder to keep straight.

I cannot emphasize enough how important that last sentence is. If you use full power at low airspeed you will be amazed at how much right rudder you need. Try it at altitude in the GF.

Have you got that? It sounds too simple doesn’t it – so here it is again. Level the nose and smoothly apply full power and enough right rudder to keep straight. It couldn’t be easier.

It’s called a GO AROUND. Heard of it?

And when should you use this simple procedure? At any point during the approach or subsequent idiocy. It doesn’t matter whether you are on the way up or on the way down – you simply use the elevator to put the nose in the level attitude and fly away.

Once you have done that, gently milk off the flaps in easy stages and mutter, ‘thanks Jim you have saved my life and my reputation’.

Of course, if you decide to land straight ahead after that, then you deserve all you have coming to you. It won’t work – you will be trying to get down again on a runway that’s getting shorter by the second and you will repeat the foolish nonsense until you do break the nosewheel off.

Simply wipe the sweat from your eyes and do a nice gentle, wide circuit and approach again at the correct airspeed on an into-wind runway.

Think about this. After you touch down, the aeroplane can only leave the ground again if it has flying speed. In other words, its wheels will stay on the ground if you are at, or below, stall speed – where you should be.

So the bottom line is that the aircraft will only ‘bounce’ if you have too much speed. If you do a steady approach at the correct speed, then round out and hold off until she stalls, she simply cannot fly again. It’s that easy.

So ‘bouncing’ is not bouncing – it’s touching down and flying again repeatedly and it can only happen if you approach and land too fast.

Okay, now let’s look at why you might come in too fast. I can think of at least 19 reasons, and they are all as a result of being too high on final approach.            

So here are the things that can make you too hot and high:

  • You are not doing your standard circuit
  • There’s a strong crosswind giving a tailwind on base
  • You are landing downwind
  • You don’t have the QNH
  • The strip is narrow – so it looks long
  • At a strange field – you tend to make downwind too close
  • You have the sun in your eyes
  • You didn’t throttle back fully
  • You are flying a strange type
  • You are doing a flapless landing
  • You haven’t lowered the gear
  • You misjudged a forced, or simulated forced landing
  • There has been a change of runway
  • You are doing a straight in approach
  • You are in a hurry to land before a storm
  • You are in a hurry because of a sick pax
  • You are in a hurry to land before it gets dark. This seems to have been in this case here. He actually landed – crashed – 26 minutes after sunset. Obviously this was not a planned part of his solo cross-country so I will stick my neck out and guess that he was so late because he got lost at some point.
  • There is a sudden wind shear
  • You didn’t use enough right rudder on takeoff.

Let me explain the last one. If you don’t use enough right rudder after takeoff, then you climb out at an angle to the left of the centerline. So when you look left to find an aiming point for your crosswind leg, it won’t take you square with the runway. And the same for the downwind turn – you won’t be parallel – you will converge. This shortens your base leg making you too high on final approach.

If this sounds a bit theoretical, it isn’t – it happens every day. A good instructor will spot this and bully you into using enough right rudder in the climb. Your circuits will be wider and more relaxed and your landings will be like a cat pissing on velvet.

I must confess to doing the bunny thing once, ferrying Tony Torr’s Mooney from George to Plett on a sparkling spring day. There’s not a cloud in sight, not a whisper of wind, and the aircraft is almost new – what can go wrong?

Just after takeoff I get a warning buzzer and a flashing light. Mooney love these little gimmicky hooters and LEDs to warn you that other lights are trying to get your attention. I grope and fiddle until I make them go away. I don’t know Moonies well and I don’t like them. The incident has jarred the Davis nervous system.

Then, at 1500 feet over the Knysna forest with sea or jungle as landing options I spot a red digital counter spinning down to zero. It claims I have no fuel flow.

I go cold. The engine is about to stop.

I change tanks and put on the pump, but the red zeros don’t even flicker. I could climb higher so when the engine stops I will glide further – but that will use more fuel and hasten the stopping.

So I sit stupidly in a cold sweat and do nothing. Eventually Plett appears and I make the worst landing of my career.

I am too high. I’ve forgotten how far a Mooney glides and floats in ground effect. I see this as a forced landing with no option of a go-around because I know the engine will just take me past the far fence before coughing its last.

In short I am too high and too fast and I have to put her down. All the ingredients for an embarrassing set of bunny hops.

When I tell Tony, who watched the whole fiasco, about the fuel flow he laughs fit to die. “Crappy gauge” he sobs.

I could cheerfully kill him.