But Helgoland is a rocky island in the middle of the sea, so the wind at the airfield can be significantly different from that from the weather stations. Quote
Interestingly, when I arrived in northern Germany last fall, they were in the midst of some kind of hurricane. AWI staff, who operate at least one of the many weather stations on Helgoland told me that the highest windspeed ever was measured there that day, of 191 Kmh.
without repairs done or even an inspection by a qualified person. Quote
There are several angles to this. In theory, it is the pilot who determines the airworthiness of the aircraft before they decide to fly it. If they declare it airworthy, they can fly it – that’s the walk around inspection. However, any reason to suspect “hidden” damage should be cause to seek more expertise. But, be careful doing this on a Piper PA-28-161, I have never found a definition for “negligible damage” in a Piper maintenance manual, (which Cessna, and other manufacturers do in great breadth). Thus, to the letter of the rules, any detectable damage to a PiperPA-28-161, would render it “unairworthy”. Silly, I know, but a problem if you have a small dent (like hail damage), and a sticky maintenance person. For reasons I suspect I know, Piper did issue a service letter for the PA-28-200R, and PA-44, so if you dent one of those, you’ve got a chance…
At worst, we will have to wait for the official investigation report – if there ever comes one. Perhaps not, as there were no (physical) injuries and material damage was very limited.
I doubt that there will come much in terms of a report. According to one of the news articles, the pilot flew his plane home in the evening without repairs done or even an inspection by a qualified person. No evidence left behind so to say. A YouTube video and some broken fence posts is all there is.
Regarding weather stations: There are (at least) two non-aviation weather stations on the island so there will certainly be some recorded wind data. But Helgoland is a rocky island in the middle of the sea, so the wind at the airfield can be significantly different from that from the weather stations.
Isn’t “Vat” a tax?
That’s a good explanation. Still, I find it hard to imagine there would not be a weather station at this unique location that doesn’t keep logs – the question is indeed who can read them. At worst, we will have to wait for the official investigation report – if there ever comes one. Perhaps not, as there were no (physical) injuries and material damage was very limited.
but I have yet to see the METAR ( s ) .
EDXH does not release METARS! They have an automated weather display on their homepage (http://www.flughafen-helgoland.de/informationen-fuer-selbstflieger-nach-helgoland-edxh.html) which might or might not have an archive, but that is probably not available to the public.
One thing that strikes me: this incident is discussed at length on every aviation forum I frequent, but I have yet to see the METAR ( s ) .
(I could search for them, but I am sure some here know how to find them in 1-2-3)
What was the actual wind at the time?
There is a lot of “SOP” at flying schools some instructors are forced to use…
Here is a little anecdote. I got my instructor rating on a PA28, simply because I did not fancy my CFI enough to want to rub shoulders in a C152 for 40 hours – although he is a lovely gentleman.
But of course I had to teach in a C152 as well, so I quickly enquired the speeds we teach (“everything is 65 kt”) and went into the circuit. Boy, did I struggle with the landings…
So after 3 landings I returned, read the performance section in the POH, went back up, flew 10-15 kt slower, and everything was beautiful…
After an “interesting” conversation with the CFI (who, slight disagreements not withstanding, I rate highly!), I went back up again, and learned to do it at 65kt.
“what shade of blue, sir?” ;-)
Alioth
It is a problem with the system simply because it is not weeding out the people who are not doing the instructing job properly, most of the trouble comes from people who aspire to flying a jet airliner and have seen too many in cockpit videos.
This is a problem I find with a lot of pilots who have been trained in the UK, the training system wants you to add all sorts of increments of speed because they think it adds to safety.
I don’t think it’s necessarily “the system”. I got checked out at Barton in a C172 a few years ago and you can bet the instructor wanted me to come over the fence at the proper (not fast, no silly increments) airspeed, and slightly slower than the book speed because the book speed was for at gross weight and we were only two light people with half fuel. However, a friend of mine was getting checked out to fly at the now defunct Ravenair operation at EGNS, and the instructor really didn’t like him to go below 70 knots(!!!) on short final in a C172 (the book value for a normal landing at gross weight is 65kts, IIRC). We so wanted to take that instructor flying in the Auster where you can make a wheel landing out of a 40 mph approach.
QuotePiper Archer I would be interested to know what your flight manual has to say about the landing distance required at MLW at sea level on an ISA day ?,
I need to check that, I am away in Germany at the moment so no access to my POH at home.
My guess is that the reason you think a PA28 floats excessively is the you are not arriving at the runway with the correct Vat
There is probably some truth in that, but when I changed many years ago from the PA28-140 to the -181, just the differnt wing design tends to give a more floating / ground effect than the -140, or even a Cessna 150 type machine.
