I bought a 1975 8KCAB Decathlon less than a week ago. To celebrate I began a camping trip up from Austin, TX through Colorado, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and eventually South Dakota, Yellowstone, Idaho and Friday Harbor. Unfortunately, the trip took a sudden stop in Nebraska.
After sleeping in the terminal building I preflighted the plane and began some landing practice. My three point landings aren't bad, being similar to what I'm used to in nose-wheel aircraft, but my wheel landings could use some work, and I had a mild bounce or two. I never really tried to rescue anything though, whenever things went sideways I powered up and continued with my practice. On my last pass, I had one of these bounces and heard a "kerrunch", as I was going around I turned to see the right brake line trailing in the wind. A drop of the wing revealed the right landing gear was lying in the runway below!
It was immediately very clear my trip would not be going as planned! I radioed down to the excellent FBO (thank you George in Sidney, Nebraska!) who called the fire department just in case. I flew around for about half an hour while they made a plan (this is a small town!) with somewhat less than usual engine power. I later discovered the departure had resulted in the two trailing inches of each propeller blade being bent 90 degrees by the concrete runway (likely the sound I heard).
After everyone was ready I made an uneventful three-point landing in the grass by the runway. Ultimately the headwind was such (thank you Nebraska!) that the right wingtip didn't make it to the ground until the plane was only going 15 MPH or so. The damage, other than the gear leg and prop/engine is confined to a bit of missing fiberglass on the wingtip.
I'm now sorting out insurance obviously, but I would LOVE to hear if anyone has heard of this happening to Decathlons of my plane's vintage before. Any guesses if this was something which could have been detected?
After sleeping in the terminal building I preflighted the plane and began some landing practice. My three point landings aren't bad, being similar to what I'm used to in nose-wheel aircraft, but my wheel landings could use some work, and I had a mild bounce or two. I never really tried to rescue anything though, whenever things went sideways I powered up and continued with my practice. On my last pass, I had one of these bounces and heard a "kerrunch", as I was going around I turned to see the right brake line trailing in the wind. A drop of the wing revealed the right landing gear was lying in the runway below!
It was immediately very clear my trip would not be going as planned! I radioed down to the excellent FBO (thank you George in Sidney, Nebraska!) who called the fire department just in case. I flew around for about half an hour while they made a plan (this is a small town!) with somewhat less than usual engine power. I later discovered the departure had resulted in the two trailing inches of each propeller blade being bent 90 degrees by the concrete runway (likely the sound I heard).
After everyone was ready I made an uneventful three-point landing in the grass by the runway. Ultimately the headwind was such (thank you Nebraska!) that the right wingtip didn't make it to the ground until the plane was only going 15 MPH or so. The damage, other than the gear leg and prop/engine is confined to a bit of missing fiberglass on the wingtip.
I'm now sorting out insurance obviously, but I would LOVE to hear if anyone has heard of this happening to Decathlons of my plane's vintage before. Any guesses if this was something which could have been detected?
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