This is some pretty incredible footage. Look at the speed he's carrying as he touches down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze2nEipDLR0

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It almost makes you want to cry...I can only hope that someday if that happened to my airplane I could be as calm as that owner.

What does everyone else think about landing gear-up on sod / grass?

I think I've heard/read somewhere that landing gear-up on sod
causes dirt to "build up" in front of the aircraft, causing more damage
to the undersides than a belly landing on an asphalt runway would
cause....

FWIW, Tom Woods landed gear-up on pavement in his P-51 and
reportedly had minimal damage:



Not trying to 2nd guess the pilot in this case, just wondering what
others think.... (i.e., what would you do?).

Interesting. In both of these cases, the pilot elected to land with the canopy closed. I'd think having the canopy open would be a good idea. I thought that many WWII pilots launched and recovered with canopys open for emergency egress purposes.....

Makes you want to cry in any case..... All it takes is $$ to rebuild. I'm betting the insurance underwriter isn't quite as calm as the owner..

MTV

That canopy looks open to me on the Aussie bird. Nevertheless, it looked expensive.

gb

Hmmm. Vision may be failing. I couldn't see the canopy open on it, but maybe it was. Anyway, expensive arrivals.

MTV

Any landing where one can walk away is a good landing....Any landing where the airplane can be used again is a great landing..........$$$$$$ aside, these guys did a great job of saving their bird and themselves!

1954C180 wrote:What does everyone else think about landing gear-up on sod / grass?

I think I've heard/read somewhere that landing gear-up on sod
causes dirt to "build up" in front of the aircraft, causing more damage
to the undersides than a belly landing on an asphalt runway would
cause....

Not trying to 2nd guess the pilot in this case, just wondering what
others think.... (i.e., what would you do?).

Typically the asphalt does less damage to the aircraft because it is a smooth surface and does not give any. It basically has the same effect as sandpaper. Insurance claims that I have seen where the pilot elected to take the grass usually do more damage to the stringers and bulkheads because of the unlevel surface and "softness" of dirt. If you have ever seen the belly of an airplane that landed gear up on grass you will know what I am talking about...it looks like someone took a ball pein hammer to it as apposed to an electric sander on asphalt.

I think that grass has the sort of slip 'n slide texture that you'd think would be better to belly-in on. I've seen and heard about guys landing straight floats on wet grass, so I can see how one would find that texture more inviting over the obvious coarse sanding action of the pavement.

Either way you're probably replacing some belly skins.

Wouldn't grass provide less potential for sparks that could ignite any spilling fuel if things didn't go as well as planned.

I'm not thinking about the airplane at that point, if i can use it again great but i wan't as many things on my side as possible for being able to use someone elses airplane next time.

Unless you have a fuel leak or really screw up the landing there should not be a problem. Most of the time the wings don't touch the ground until the aircraft has stopped so it is not usually a factor. I cannot remember the last time there was a fire simply due to a gear up landing.

But Mustangs have a fuselage fuel tank.....course, ya gotta get through the radiator first...

MTV

Yes, the aux tank aft of the rear seat....it is not often used unless making a longer flight. When used it is normally the first one to burn from as it creates an aft CG and the tail will swap ends in a high G turn.

There are probably less than a handful of Mustangs flying today
that have the rear (fuselage) tank installed, and it's a pretty safe
bet that there are no (as in zero) Mustangs flying with the rear
fuselage tank actually being used.

The fuselage tank is what everyone removes to put the 2nd seat
back there.