Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Being a Member of the AMA for a long time. Ireceive the magazine and for a time they were sending me the Model Aviation DVDs. I've seen some really good Pilots loose wheels on take offs. (many have retracts of course) This makes me feel better, knowing I'm not the only one that has ever lost a wheel on take off. My model however, is not not that advanced. My landing gear is fixed. Ifly from a grass run way. But I have never had a wheel come off before. Since Iwas flying the U Can do 60. Iknew Icould make really slow gentle landing.. I tried to land as gentle as I could. But when the landing gear touched the ground, it broke the bottom of the airplane out. Then It ripped through the wing. Then it put a whole in the tail. And then it punctured Elevator! It seems to me, the only other option was to land into some really tall grass, on the other side of the field. Would this have helped lessen the damage?

I'm looking for landing Stories, and tips when things like this go wrong.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Tall grass maybe,,
Dead stick and inverted would have been your least damaging option on grass,, easy for me to say right?

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Thats a tough one. I dont know how slow you are able to fly your "you can do", but in one of my 3D planes I would slow it down as much as possible and stall it into the tall grass. Fly low in a harrier type position and let it kind of flop into the grass. Otherwise there is not much you can do to keep the gear from grabbing unless you are able to hover it over to yourself and grab it out of the air.:D:D:D

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

land as slow as possible on the good wheel... keep aileron in until it slows down more.. rolling on the good wheel....
when slowed or almost stopped... the other side will drop.....

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

I was training a guy who had a Nextstar. One of the main gear fell off a little after take off. I guess they just snap in. He flew it around awhile, when the time came to land, I just landed it like I always do. Came down on the main then the nose, about a foot later the wing came down in the grass. It was all slow so there was no damage.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

I've been very fortunate, never had it happen at my club field. Thereis some swamp grass beyond the runway that I would probably go for if I had to. But this has happened to me twice at other places. Once was with my Sig Somethin Extra flying at my house. I landed in the road instead of theyard I had take off from. I camein low, lined upon the leftside of the road,bled off throttle until left wheel touched and held it on left wheel as long as I could with ailerons, a little right rudder and more elevator. When the right gear righthit the pavement, I gave hard left rudder and skiddedto a gentle 90 degreestop on the right side of the road. No problem other than scuffed aluminum gear. The lasttimeit happened I was doing demo flight at church with my 1/4 scale cub. Not enoughclear pavement to land on, so I killed theengine and dead sticked in a wheat field next to the church. Put a few holes in the covering, but nothing major.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

You Guys gave me some really good suggestions !

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Now that you know how to land missing a wheel it will never happen to you again....

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

I think every situation is different; the plane, pilot skills, field condition, weather, etc.. One thing for sure, there is no EASY method. Couple years back topped off the tank on my 30% Extra, taxied out, lined up and shot the throttle to it. It had no more gained 20 ft. altitude when a wheel came off. One thing in my favor was a generous headwind. I decided to land, full tank and all. My thought was a loaded plane may break some things, but an unloaded one could be prone to tumble and break more things. Lined up and started down, kept nose high to bleed off as much speed as possible and just before contact I flared it back a bit more to stall or thereabouts, and tapped ailerons to set it down on the good side first. It plopped on the ground, the nose went down, the tail went up but once it hit 70 degrees or so it came back down. Plane didn't cover more than a 3 feet or so of ground. Only damage was slight, a hairline crack in the LG box and a crack on the cowl. Prop, everything else was ok. Axle had broke. I'm kinda convinced the fuel weight kept it from going over. Heck, it may not have made any difference at all, but all things considered, got pretty lucky that day!

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

[X(]

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

I actually had this happen with my GP Super Stearman. I had enough time to think it out and land pretty well on one wheel on our clubs petrolmat runway.. It was absolutely perfect..UNTIL.....

It layed the bare axle on the mat, it started to slide along in a broad arc..making a ZZZZZZZZ sound. Just when I thought I was going to get away with it, the axle hit a staple that holds the runway down..BAM.. it ripped th landing gear out of the plane..threw it over upside down and ripped the cabanes out of the hood of the plane..I was so close ...

took the smile off my face to be sure.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

I had a BUSA Bristol M1c that lost a wheel. What I did was roll down the runway wheeless side wing high- cross control with rudder. (Previous practice with a Piper Cub doing alternate one wheels 'touch and rolls' helped with this) I killed throttle just before I entered the tall grass at end of runway. It was actually kinda fun and didn't result in any damage to the airplane. For a deadstick float plane I came in a little hot, skipped the plane off the water and onto the bank! Naturally, no one was there to witness that bit of flying expertise... I mean...luck! Another time I broke a stab doing snaprolls. The stab was broken as expected- down- and it induced 'down' elevator that could not be compensated by 'up'. I just rolled inverted and killed the engine prior to upside down landing. The airplane got broken up a bit but at least it was repairable and the engine and radio weren't harmed. I considered myself an 'expert' after that one- hahahahaha!

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Foam the grass?

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Just remember that once you land, it will take a lot of power to taxi.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

I've seen this happen many times - knock wood never had it happen to me. Some, like a quarter scale biplane, were astonishing feats of skill. The drill is to come in a tad slower than normal and use the aileron to roll the wheelless side slightly higher than the remaining wheel. Watched a guy drop a wheel on a Quickie 500 during the race, finish, and then land on one wheel with only a few degrees of yaw when it finally stopped. Impressive.

Your case - peeling gear - Ihave experienced. Ithought Iwould be clever and use four 4-40 Nylon screws to hold the gear on my Hot Stik. Icame in hot one day (actually, Iscrewed up and hit the CROWswitch at speed and did a right angle down followed by a almost save at ground level. The model skidded in, stripped the gear off, like yours tore up the wing covering on one side, and spun it up into the horizontal stab and tore one side off and the servo arms (4) caught in the turf and three needed new internal gearing. It's been in the rebuild pile for over a year.

What can be done? Don't hit the ground so hard. Also, Idecided Nylon gear bolts may not have saved me much - though that pancake was going to hurt no matter what.</p>

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Grass?? What is this grass stuff I keep hearing about??:D I have only lost a wheel once and I was on a crop dusters field. The farm the field was located at had some sort of nice tall {{about three feet} green stuff they grow for some kind of cattle fodder?? I just slowed down over the green stuff and did a flat stall right into it.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

After losing a wheel it was no more wheel collars for me! Now I epoxy brass tubing over the axle. The brass tubing has a washer soldered on the inboard end then goes the wheel and next another washer. A small hole drilled opposite end to insert a cotter pin which retains everything.

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Reminds me of a long time ago with my first plane. Just happened to have a camera on it at the time.

http://vimeo.com/2685670

RE: Lost A Wheel in Mid air. How Do you Land?
 

Circles like a broken bug.