CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

I was out yesterday flying, well, I shouldn't say flying because what I was doing was reacting to the wind. It was nasty. More nasty than I figured it was when my Tiger 120 was on the ground.

I fueled up, set everything up and walked the plane to the runway. I set it down, ran the engine up to clear it out, then walked back to the flight line. When I turned around, the plane had vaned into the wind which was in my face while walking back to the flight line.

I noted that the wind had shifted and took that into consideration when taking off. After lifting off, the wind changed again, by about 30 or so degrees. Now, it would have been almost a tail wind in my take-off attitude. When I reached altitude, the plane was all over the place. That's saying something for a plane as big as the Tiger 120, which usually is a pretty good plane for working with a strong wind, but in this case, after I climbed above the tree line, well, it was very very nasty.

I orbited around seeing if it was worth while fighting this crazy wind or just land it, so I decided to put it on the ground.

I began my approach considering the wind as it was at the time, and came in sort of on an angle to the centerline rather than directly lined up with it, crabing along. I cut the throttle where I thought I should but the plane climbed. Jeech.. this wind is a pain. So, I added some down and pushed it against the wind, the engine at idle. I was basically forcing it to get down, and after second thought, I should have gone around and tried it again. But, I wanted to put it on the ground. At about 5 feet, I was on a clean approach and it was getting smooth for a change, when all of a sudden, the plane climbed up to about 10 feet then right back down again. It hit the ground harder than I had hoped it would and tore off the main landing gear and broke the prop.

That was all the damage I had but it was a bit of a pain because the plane is fairly new. The repairs are already finished, including reinforcing the landing blocks that the gear is attached to (tail dragger configuration so the blocks are in the fuselage instead of in the wing... wphew!!! it would have been real nasty has this torn out the blocks in the wing).

This is a blessing in disguise. I had to add over a pound to find the CG (see another thread on this..) so i was able to remove some of the useless weight out of the nose and add it as some securing blocks for the main gear. Not much, but weight put better to use than the lead weights over the fuel tank.

That's my story, and I will swear to it!!! [:@]

Flyboy Dave

My Feedback: (21)

I have never seen anything really good happen flying in high winds....all bad. []

FBD.

overbored77

My Feedback: (11)

Dick. Sorry to hear about the tiger, atleast the damage wasn't that bad. I have to say that is the worst thing a bout strawberry field,
one minute you have a nice headwind pointing straight down the runway and halfway through your approach the windsock makes a 90 degree turn. Suprising that the tiger got that out of shape though it is a big plane. I was going to head out on sunday but I think I'll stay home and cover the T2, supposed to be cold and windy. Actually I just talked to Steve and I will be going over to stawberry around 11am supposed to be 39 degrees sunny winds 5-10 mph

Villa

Usually you get the runway to yourself. The adrenalin rush is superb. Surprisingly, I have crashed very few planes from flying in high winds. If you can make it down to about 1-2 feet it smoothes down. You do learn what ALL of the controls are used for. The last sentence sounds sarcastic and it is not meant to be. I mean that you must learn to use the controls instinctively since the required reaction time is so short. I now fly only SPADS so a tumble on landing is no big deal. In a way SPADS have made me a poorer pilot. At our field, a Rudy landing (my name) is a rough/hard landing. The main gear on my SPADS would make any NAVY pilot proud. Tough but not heavy.