From a few days ago. See here.
Any landing you can walk away from. I think with the descent rate and lack of energy available to flare, putting the gear down was a very wise choice as it absorbed a lot of the impact energy instead of the occupants.
putting the gear down was a very wise choice as it absorbed a lot of the impact energy instead of the occupants.
Isn’t what cause high sink rate in the first place?
You need energy to flare, lowering the gear near stall is not wise…I think they lower it as they cleared the trees and obstacles but it made things worse: drag and unstable high pitch
These aircraft are guaranteed to land ok with gear down and gear up (as they do every week) with sensible ASI & VSI data
I don’t think those small gear motor acts like SpaceX rocket boosters that will cushion the impact? I don’t believe gear position matters at all in case of forced landing…my ex co-owner forgot about it when Mooney engine stopped, he told me if he had to do it again he will crack door open (he was stuck and exit via baggage gate)
All good, glad the occupants were fine.
Food for thought; I have seen a few of these emergency landings which were in a good situation, i.e. a large beach to land on, but the aircraft are stalled, or almost stalled, with no energy for a flair. The last bit is terrible as the plane smacks in.
It serves as a reminder to myself to keep the nose down and reserve sufficient energy for a flair.
Having flown a rag and tube floatplane and practiced many power off landings, the nose down attitude is pretty significant, but you can always smooth it out in the flare as long as you have the energy. I have also landed on a number of beaches, which had at least as good a surface of as my home airfield (although this is variable, and one day I might get stuck :-)).
There is an emergency landing speed (83 Kts) that should be used to avoid the inevitable steep sink rate to allow sufficient energy for a flare. Also the position of the prop control makes a huge huge huge difference in the Bonanza. I was doing a BPPP familiarization flight yesterday with a new Bonanza owner. The glide at 105 Kts prop left alone delivered a sink rate of 1600 FPM and windmilling RPM of 2200. Pulling the prop to the rear stop, lowered the RPM to 1200 and the sink rate to 700 FPM. When the gear is lowered, the speed should be reduced to 83 Kts and the nose has to be lowered significantly to maintain the speed to the flare. It appears to me that the aircraft was already slow and the high sink rate with the gear down would not have sufficient reserve energy to flare.
NCYankee wrote:
It appears to me that the aircraft was already slow and the high sink rate with the gear down would not have sufficient reserve energy to flare.
That was my impression
NCYankee wrote:
There is an emergency landing speed (83 Kts) that should be used to avoid the inevitable steep sink rate to allow sufficient energy for a flare.
Is this substantially different from the usual 1.3 x Vso approach speed?
Yes. In my Beech (not Beach) F33A POH the “landing approach (flaps down) speed” is 70 kts, quite a bit lower than the 83 kts in the same POH for the F33A as the speed for “emergency approach”. The Bonanza’s gear has unusually high drag which makes the power-off glide very steep indeed, hence the round-out for landing needs extra energy.
Obviously the landing is a bit of a shame because the plane could have been completely undamaged. He sure was mushing along. Oh well, I wasn’t there to see what led up to that point, have never flown a Bonanza and its a good thing regardless that he found a good place to crash without injury. I imagine he had good harnesses if that was the case.
Interesting about the recommended approach speed in high drag configuration. Makes sense.
Whoever took the video is very brave and/or nuts.
