This past Sunday I flew out to Grimes Airfield with my nephew to attend a fly-in. They have lots of antique aircraft flying and under reconstruction. The runway is 11/29 and is wide, grassy and 2,700 foot long. Pretty easy to land on. Really pleasant place to visit and relax. They manage the fly-in quite well. There are guys on the field to guide you to a spot. They also neatly separate the taildraggers from the "modern" aircraft whom they park across the field away from the activities!

Anyway, I am sitting under the wing of my plane watching the comings and goings and I notice this Piper Archer on final. He looks a bit on the fast side. In fact I am thinking he is just going to do a low pass. Instead he drives the font wheel onto the ground halfway down the runway, starts to porpise, and disappears over the drop in the runway behind the corn field. A couple of long seconds pass and up he staggers into the air. How he missed the fence on the far end I don't know.

Whoa! I think! That boy needs to slow down a bit more on final. Around the pattern the Archer goes for another try. Same result only this time he hits (yeah, thats the right word) a bit closer to the start of the runway and I see him bounce a couple times before disappearing. Up he comes once again for another go around. By now everybody on the field is watching this guy. I notice other planes exiting the pattern to wait this guy out.

Now I am starting to be afraid for this guy and his passengers. I mean after two tries like that I would be embarrassed to try again. Not this guy! Here he comes again! I watch him turn base to final. He has way overshot and struggles to line back up on the centerline. Jeez! He looks like he is coming right at me! I am thinking about escape routes and alert my nephew. The Archer slides back to the runway and dammed if he doesn't slam this thing on the ground again! Dust is everywhere and he once again disappears down the runway. A couple seconds pass and I figure he either managed to brake to a stop or slide to a crash at the far end. I am sure he is on the ground when, once again, the plane staggers into the air! How in hell?

Now the guys handling the parking on the ground are in a group talking. Obviously they are wishing they had a handheld radio. Around the Archer comes for the fourth time. Everbody is watching. The fourth time is no charm. Wham! he nails the runway, disappears, and struggles once again into the air. Enough is enough! The guys take off their orange vests and form a line across the start of the runway. For the fifth time this "pilot" turns base to final. He looks like he is going to land right on these guys. They are waving their vests and arms. The Archer, on short final, finally breaks off and heads out to the east. What a relief!

I sincerely hope he made it back to his airport and had a safe landing for his passengers sake. I would be surprised if the landing gear didn't sustain damage. The plane looked brand new and I am wondering if he just got it and is out showing off. In retrospect I probably should have written down his N number and give the FAA safety team a call. At a minimum he needs a talking to. Maybe one of the other guys did. I hate reporting someone but I am thinking about what this guy just put his passengers through!

This was really tough to watch!

Probably just getting a bit of practice in before he heads to Johnson Creek.

Gump

GumpAir wrote:Probably just getting a bit of practice in before he heads to Johnson Creek.

Gump

LOL

Test pilot doing landing gear abuse testing for Piper. Showing potential buyers how tough it is!

At least the guy didn't wreck it in front of the crowd

I have come to the conclusion that there are some folks with more plane than skill or experience and more money than brain power.

I live in an airpark with folks like this. This sounds like one of my neighbrs.

OK, OK, I'll admit it-- that was me. I thought I was a pretty good pilot with a couple thousand hours of t/w time, but those Archers aren't as easy to land as I thought. Guess I shouldn't have kept trying to do a wheel landing....

obxbushpilot wrote:I have come to the conclusion that there are some folks with more plane than skill or experience and more money than brain power.

I can identify with this. I purposely bought a plane with tricycle gear and slow, easy flight characteristics. On a good day I can keep up with it, but I still have days when my landings look like shite. It would have been nice to have started flying before age 55, but it just wasn't in the cards. I respect folks who know their limitations. Too bad that guy didn't. I hope he didn't have passengers.

tom

GumpAir wrote:Probably just getting a bit of practice in before he heads to Johnson Creek.

Gump

Ha! I think Gump's right.

Maybe, though, the kid that steals airplanes escaped.

From my observation, never, repeat NEVER park anything you care about on the side of the runway at a local fly-in... there is always some BOZO out to get current and attend the event all in one fell swoop...

Oldcrowe wrote:From my observation, never, repeat NEVER park anything you care about on the side of the runway at a local fly-in... there is always some BOZO out to get current and attend the event all in one fell swoop...

Ha! I often think the same thing. There is definitely a "groundloop zone" of parking that should be avoided. Perhaps for tricycle gear aircraft it could be called the "crumpled nosegear steering zone."

You guys are attending the wrong fly-ins, apparently.

You need to hang out near a runway that's used a lot for primary training for a while. Flat spotting of tires seems to be an Olympic event sometimes...not to mention attempts to relieve an airplane of it's nose gear.

Many if not most CFIs are pretty new pilots themselves. They were admonished during their training (by very low time CFIs) about how many people die in traffic pattern accidents because they got slow. So, if a little extra speed is good, a LOT of extra speed on approach must be REALLY good. Sooner or later, that becomes institutionalized, and becomes part of CHECK LISTS.

Trust me....I have the evidence in my flight bag.....

MTV

hotrod150 wrote:OK, OK, I'll admit it-- that was me. I thought I was a pretty good pilot with a couple thousand hours of t/w time, but those Archers aren't as easy to land as I thought. Guess I shouldn't have kept trying to do a wheel landing....

Wouldn't it a been cool if he'd a greased the nose wheel on and braked to a stop with the mains in the air

Coupla thoughts:

1) Those guys that ran out on the field to flag the hot'n bouncy Archer pilot away from their airstrip would not have included me if I had been there ... any pilot as bad as described is more than capable of trying to stick the nosewheel in the turf right in the middle of that gaggle of flagmen!

2) Being a Cherokee owner and one who's also got a few hours in the tapered-wing Archers and Warriors, I can say that it's probably a little tougher to land a tapered wing Piper if you're even a little hot on short final. With the hershey bar wing on the older Cherokees, there's pretty much no such thing as floating on final as long as you pull the power back, after which either a) you make a great greaser landing 'cause you were only a foot or so above the runway when the power was cut, or b) you make a very hard landing 'cause you were significantly greater than one foot above terra firm when you cut the power.

But c'mon ...making one hot approach is understandable, making two such hot approaches in a row is questionable .... and making as many as this guy did before he was chased off the field is, well, as the headline says, "Hard to watch"!!

As long as no one was hurt, What the HELL?

e-gods, what a tough bunch...! i thought flat spots on my tires just meant than i need to stick to the dirt more...

Call the FAA? Wow.

mtv wrote:You need to hang out near a runway that's used a lot for primary training for a while. Flat spotting of tires seems to be an Olympic event sometimes...not to mention attempts to relieve an airplane of it's nose gear.
MTV

Mike you should visit Riverside (KRVS) with sometimes 300+ primary students at a time in the works it's a hoot. There is an observation/picnic pavilion adjacent to the touch down point on 19L (where the instructors hang out during solo's... the other day I gave an instructor a ride around the airport because his student forgot to pick him back up...it's only a 2+ mile walk around!). Some days the show is unforgettable I’m just glad that as a newbie a few years ago with one of the controllers as my instructor he wasn't about to have my early talents displayed in front of his co-workers while learning in my SC so we took my solo's and practice at nice quiet locations... On nice days Spartan students are subject to the flash cards coming out for grading every now and then

Hard to watch, I don't know. Now if you could have videoed that, you would be a YouTube sensation.

Maybe no handheld radio, but I bet there were a lot of airplanes there with radios...assuming the guy was on the right frequency that is.