REFLECTOR: Incident at PDK

[Donald Royer]

Wednesday May 9 I made a VFR flight from Zephyrhills Florida to Peachtree-Dekalb airport (PDK) in Atlanta. The problem occurred during the landing. As shown in the report, there was a gusty wind and the air was very turbulent. There were several other distracting factors that are really not relevant to this report, and the net result was that I made a hard landing. In retrospect, I feel that it was not all that hard and I have had harder landings in the past without damage, but this time the nose gear broke. One possible contributing factor may have been that I was flying with the CG essentially at the aft limit and the resulting nose high attitude may have caused the nose gear to slam down especially hard, or maybe it was commutative fatigue from several severe cases of shimmy in the past, but shimmy was not involved this time.

The initial break was about three inches above the fork, right in the lower bend in the leg. That seems to me to be a rather strange place for a break, but it is clear that that is what broke first. The broken end of the leg then dug into the asphalt runway (it left about a three inch hole in the runway) and this caused a second break. The second break was in the weld at the top of the pivot bolt tube. When the plane came to rest the stub of the leg was pointing backwards, and the nose of the plane was on the ground.

The reason that the report says that it occurred on a taxiway is that while sliding down the runway I came to a turnoff and turned off and cleared the runway before it stopped. Of course, they still had to close the runway while the nose wheel and fork were retrieved.

Epps Aviation retrieved the plane and let me work in their shop and loaned me tools for the next two days. Other than the gear leg itself, I was surprised at how little damage was done. There was the expected cosmetic scrape on the bottom of the nose and the nose gear doors were in sorry shape, but they were still attached. The pivot bolt bushings, the captivator, and the canard bulkhead were all undamaged which I think says good things about how tough these Velocities are. The only other damage was to the tip of one prop blade which looks like it probably struck the nose wheel. It doesn't look too bad and I think that it is repairable, but I will want an expert opinion before I fly with it.

A new gear leg was overnighted up from Velocity. It has been installed and the plane is back on it's wheels and tied down outside until I can get back to finish getting it airworthy which should not take more than about one more day. One thing that will have to be addressed at that time is, that for reasons that I don't understand, the old fork doesn't fit properly on the new leg. I can't tighten the Belleville washers.

One last thing. There has recently been a discussion here about bent pivot bolts. This one had to be cut out. 

Donald Royer
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