Many have probably already heard, but a couple L 39's got too close yesterday here at Reno. The more amazing aspect is that when the one which lost most of his vertical went to put down the gear, the gear did not deploy perfectly at the same time which sent him rolling uncontrollably. He recovered inverted and very close to the ground, but was able to push (negative gs) and climb back to altitude inverted before rolling up right. The most Amazing aspect was that he made a total of three! Gear up landings before coming to a stop at the very end of the runway on the third attempt. I am sure there have been other instances of aircraft touching down gear up and then getting back into the air, but I doubt they skidded thousands of feet down the runway before realizing they weren't going to get stopped by the end, adding power and lifting back off. Perhaps lifting back off is a poor description of the act of achieving flight past the drop off at the end of the runway! Remember, he had just lost control at slow speed, so the subsequent landing attempts were at higher than normal approach speeds.
I don't normally like to post on these types of incidents, but the combination of the survival of the midair followed by surviving the uncontrolled roll with inverted recovery a few hundred feet above the ground and then having the same aircraft do three Gear up landings before completing the flight - was just TOO AMAZING not to share.
For comparison, here is how much vertical and Rudder should be on the aircraft. The second aircraft had less damage. FYI, the pic is not of the second aircraft involved, just another L39
