David,
I too have had a similar excursion and done what you did with much the same pain
in the wallet. I believe you are correct in the hindsight that thou shalt not
touch thy brake, which is I believe incredibly difficult to do once your
outrigger
fails and the noise of the wingtip grinding off on the pavement fills your
ears.
My incident occurred following a pretty benign skip/bounce. I had been flying
for quite some time without replacing the roll pin that prevents the tail wheel
---From turning round backwards. On the bounce, the tail wheel did the seemingly
impossible by turning completely backwards, which locks due to the springs in
an over center configuration, resulting in a loss of directional control.I know
it was in that configuration as I touched down after the bounce because the
left rudder pedal went to the floor with no resistance as the nose swung right.
I had thought the little roll pin unimportant. The cracks in the pavement
probably contributed to the tail wheel castering round on touchdown.
Don't fly without the stupid roll pin and and don't touch the brake. I'm not
sure
I can keep my hand off the brake let alone move it to the throttle!
Kevin
On Jun 16, 2012, at 2:46 PM, "David Joyce" <davidjoyce@doctors.org.uk> wrote:
>
> Have been doing a bit of thinking about how I could possibly have done a
> ground
loop at my advanced age, and having inadvertently shared my loop with you while
sleepily assuming I was replying to Tim personally, I thought I might share
my conclusions with you. It seems to me that like meeting a large bird nose/beak
on or ditching, ground looping is something you don't get taught, but something
where a bit of prior nought would definitely be an asset! So here's my
thoughts:
> Having turned 90 degrees left off the 09 runway, I was taxying at a
> brisk
pace up the 36 runway with a brisk (said on landing to be 10kts, but on
measuring
immediately after the loop 10, gusting 18kts) coming from R rear quarter.
After a momentary look at an instrument, I found myself swinging right. Full
left rudder didn't stop the swing, and my reflex was to brake, as this generally
of course helps turning manoeuvres in a mono. The turn continued and the
plane went gently forwards and left with the ground touching the left wingtip
and the prop. The stick was hard back all the time, because this is also
ingrained
in mono pilots to increase the authority of the tail wheel.
> With the amazing wisdom of hindsight, I strongly suspect that had I
not braked the plane would not have gone A over T onto its prop, although it
might
have still touched the left wingtip. Slowing down and cutting the throttle
also of course reduced airflow over the tail plane reducing the tail down
forces,
and removed the left turning effect of prop wash acting on the port side
of the fin. So if I ever find myself threatened with a difficult to control
tendency
to turn sharply into wind, I hope I shall remember to accelerate rather
than brake. An excursion on to the grass would have been a minor matter compared
with a set of new blades + engine check. Glad to hear anyone else's experience
or thoughts. Regards, David Joyce! G-XSDJ
>
> PS Now when confronted with a large bird looking as though it is coming
> through
the screen I reckon the smart move is to pull up, as birds are likely to dive
in a panic situation as their only means of rapidly gaining speed to avoid
a threat, but when it first happened I hesitated a bit before turning right,
wondering
whether the bird knew the rules of the air! Ditching thoughts in due
course.
>
>
>
>
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