Engine-Out, Bad landing

[NoWingsAttached]

Just now getting around to writing this. The investigation is closed, it is listed as an "incident", not an accident. The official cause is: exceeded the limits of the aircraft by exhausting the fuel supply beyond the operating limits of the equipment. There was still 1-1/2 gallons of fuel, but ran the line dry all right. I had switched from rear to fore seat tank.

I had flown a 40 minute cruise around the airport area, and then did 4 fine steep descent/ engine-out practice landings. I then took off, climbed quickly to 300' in the cool dusk air, turned right crosswind, reached 600' and was looking to clear right to turn right downwind (dead calm conditions) when the fuel ran out. I nosed down, turned right, as I was doing anyways, and picked a construction area to land in. Hindsight shows I could have EASILY landed back on the runway, or at the very least clear, flat airport fields or pavement had i just continued my turn and made it a 180 - 200 instead of a 90. I passed over what appeared to be a huge pile of earth as I approached my intended landing zone. It turned out to be bark chips, and they were hot as hell as they decomposed. The thermal seems to have caused a vortex that threw my nose 80 degrees hard left, just as I should have been starting my initial flare. I slammed down the right pedal, brought the nose fully around front again just in time to clip a 4' berm I hadn't noticed, at the moment when I should have been starting my full flare. I hit the ground going really fast, flipping the gyro as it broke the nose gear and caught the main right wheel on the top of the berm. I did a face plant, cut my lip, other minor stuff, but man, did I ever fix my gyro bad. The mast is amazing - it is straight!! The mods I had done to triangulate the frame probably saved my but, and kept the frame damage to a minimum. The worst of it is the rotor and the head of course. Even the prop survived! The bent rotor hit the tall tail, so that is messed up too. I almost hit a tree, although as I was bringing it in that tree was well to my left - until the gyro spun around unexpectedly hard left at the last second. I just couldn't catch a break that day. Wierd. A better, more experienced pilot could have handled that little engine out with a landing back on the taxi-way or even the runway. I am pretty blue now. Black and blue. But the main thing is that it was a good landing, eh? The kind you walk away from. Anybody know of an Air Command Tandem head I can pick up? Maybe a 28' rotor too?

[NoWingsAttached]

I had a GPS strapped to my leg to check my airspeed indicator. I flipped on the unit many, many days after the crash, and there was my entire track on the screen, and with the altitude profile. Wow. Technology. It even gives exact times for readout points. That's how I know for sure I could have, should have turned around and gone back to the airfield.

[GyroRon]

Dude, sorry to hear about it.... Crap happens, sounds like you have a good attitude about it so that is all that counts.

I try to never fly with less than 30 minutes worth of fuel on board myself, going down to a gallon and a half is just cutting it too low for my comfort.

Hey rebuild that thing and get back in the air, glad it turned out to be a relative minor thing. Rotors and a new head won't be too much...

[barnstorm2]

Sorry to hear about the damage to your ship.

You made a landing you walked away from and that is a great thing!

Don't eat yourself up with "could haves" put your mind to work on rebuilding.

I know this from experience because I too have crumpled up a machine.

Getting back on the horse is the best medicine IMHO.

You did a good job getting back in 1 piece.

[Rehan K.Janjua]

Glad you are OK.

I think you did a good job in landing and walking away.

Rebuild and fly again...........Make sure you have plenty of fuel...

[Harry_S.]

Hey Guy...you will heal...the machine will become new again...you will fly again.

What do they call it...Experience?!


Cheers :)

[dragonflyerthom]

Greg

Sorry you ran out of gas but glad you can tell the tale. Good emergency landing. Keep us posted on your progress with pics.

[gyro]

Greg, I'm at lost for words right now as I just read your post....Over all I'm glad your ok.
I sent you a PM a few days ago and did not hear back from you I guess we can pick that another time.

I'll be the first to stick my head up and ask... do you have pics?

[NoWingsAttached]

I just moved to ATL, closed on the house yesterday, just got the gyro down here last week, and I'm not even moved from the garage to the inside of the house yet, but yeah, I'll post the aftershock pics when I can. It's weird, when you look at the pics you'll wonder how the hell I brought it down in the area I did at all, and was able to walk away from it in one piece.

[scottessex]

Sorry to hear about the mishap, Been there done that. Where in Atlanta are you? I still have those arrow parts since you'll be rebuilding....

[Friendly]

Sorry to hear about the mishap, Been there done that. Where in Atlanta are you? I still have those arrow parts since you'll be rebuilding....

I agree with Ron, you really seem to have a good attitude about it. I know it sucks to have to replace the rotors and head. Been there and done that too. glad you landed alright and someone else is not posting for you!!

I also have be saving some arrow parts for you but I don't know if they are worth the price of shipping. I thought I was going to Bensen days and I was going to bring them with me.

[Mark Sanders]

Sorry to here of your hard landing I know what your going through. Best regards Try to get working on it again soon.

[Timchick]

Bummer. Glad you're OK.

[Fl90]

Sad news, indeed. Caution on the mast, if your rotors and head are damaged, change the mast. I've been through the process of checking parts and had an enlightening experience from not changing the mast. The mast became troublesome 7 hrs. later and took less than 10 mins. to become unmanageable. I got it on the ground and nearly threw up when I saw the distortion and cracks that had developed so quickly.

Phil.

[Fl90]

BTW, I have Air Command parts, not tandem, but I do have two of them.

[GyroRon]

Yes, I agree... for as cheap as it is, just being a straight tube with some holes drilled in it, changing the mast probably would be wise.

[INHERENTLY UNST]

Dear Mr. No wings attatched,

I'm very glad YOU are attatched! (That is no cheep shot, I mean it!)
You had a realy crapp day, walked away from it and are able to tell the whole world the details.
You are the man!
Fly Gyros!

I'll fly with you any day because you don't have your a$$ on your shoulders.

About the fuel. Unless your tank has a sump, most all seat tanks will hold fuel that can not be used because of the location of the fuel port.

About the Rotor head. (Trying to save you some money here safely)
The head is not dead yet! Call Paul! Upon rotor strike, most of the time,only the towers and hardware are tweeked and need replaceing. Without thinking about it, put new bearings in it.
Paul knows CNC, and if it crapps, he can finish a part by eye closer than the (Manufactors) specks.

Paul Piper knows what the Hell he is talking about even though he likes to (SLAP THE HORNETTS NEST) He He!

Louis :laser: ______________________________

Gyros don't kill People, The lack of enough training doe's!
And mabe the Government.

[Racer]

I have an air command Rotor head that I took off my single place it had 25 foot rotors on it at the time. I do not know if it is the same as a tandem head but it does have a new double bearing and all new AN bolts in it. Let me know if interested

[Hognose]

Greg,

What Phil said. In fact check with Air Command to see what they recommend.

Let me join the others in expressing gratitude for your providential escape. I am sure that you have made a mistake or two that you'll never make again. Three or five years from now you might laugh about this, but now it's too soon.

Just FYI (and for all the lurkers), be aware that the FARs require you to observe particular fuel minimums. For rotorcraft (yes, including gyros) that is enough fuel to fly to the point of intended landing (in your case, around the patch) and for another 20 minutes at cruise fuel burn.

The reg is 91.151 (b) and applies to rotorcraft flying under visual flight rules day or night. Airplanes are 91.151 (a) and need 30 minutes by day and 45 by night for VFR. These are legal minimums and if you take off with even this level of fuel you ought to have your head examined.

This doesn't mean that the FAA will come after you this time. Their big concern is that you fly safe, and you have certainly learned from this.

cheers

-=K=-

[Gyro_Kai]

Sorry about your damage, glad you got out alright.

I made note to practice my emergency landings more.
Lack of Fuel is one of a hundred reasons, why the engine stops, and it always hits when you need it least.

Kai.

[PW_Plack]

Greg,

Even given the way things turned out, you probably made the right call. The statistics say that when faced with an engine out after takeoff, your odds are better picking the first landable spot you can find, than trying to return to the runway. Obviously, you could probably use a little work on defining "landable spot..." ;)

Kerry Cartier wrote an interesting safety article on this topic in the current issue of Rotorcraft magazine.

[Fl90]

I agree with Paul, don't dwell on th thought of maing it back to the strip. I tried that once, with poor results. Pick the first good spot and don't second guess.

Phil.

[NoWingsAttached]

Well, i looked right, all i saw was trees between me and the runway. I looked left, and saw lots of airport buildings and aircraft on the ground in the parking areas. I didn't want to hit any of that. I just figured the empty construction area was a place where I could only do damage to myself and my craft, not somebody else's. I tried a restart, rechecked my fuel valves. I found the problem last night in my garage here in Atlanta area. For you Georgia guys, I am just northeast of Carrollton, in Fairfield Plantation, (Treasure Lake, or Lake Tara, depending on how old your map is.) There is an event going on at West GA Airport, just west of Carrollton, on 9/15. Let's meet up there if you guys can make the event.

[Resasi]

Greg, sounds like with the limited ammount of time you had you did the important bit...flew the aircraft. You also seem to have remained within your percieved personal limitations with regard to turning back to the field, and it says something for the limited area required to land/impact in. Look forward to seeing the pics.

When someone comes away from an incident like this and passes it on we all learn something. You have to our collective relief walked away from it a more experienced aviator, many have not. Hope the re-build goes well and good flying.

[NoWingsAttached]

Just before righting the gyro with my Durango, I remembered to take pics. So the dragline to turn it over is already attached. I am standing pretty close in the flightline taking this shot.

[NoWingsAttached]

Standing now at a right angle to the flight line, you can really appreciate how close I came to the tree in this shot.

[NoWingsAttached]

The flightline was - lining up the center of the red circle, the gyro, and the blue structure in the background. Of course the Durango wasn't there when I landed. (trying to keep my sense of humor) The large tree is visible on the far left, and there is an abandoned front-end loader on the right. The little sapling on the right didn't concern me and I gave it a nice flat-top crew cut. My flight line WAS well to the right of the red circle, which indicates where I hit the top of the stupid berm after the gyro did a 90-degree left rotation at about 20' from the ground. Wow. I just had a wild thought about why the gyro did the 90...more on that on the next frame.

[NoWingsAttached]

This lines up the flightline pretty good I think. The green line shows the approximate profile of the giant pile of bark chips the day I crashed. When this pic was taken several days later, the operator had, by then, knocked down the pile about 10 feet. The red arrow is where I hit the top of the berm. My revelation from the previous panel is this: Perhaps I wasn't spun around in midair by turbulent thermal vortex drafts, but rather I believe it may be possible that I clipped the top of the bark chip pile with my left main gear. I do remember trying to set her down as close as possible to the far side (of my approach) of the bark pile as possible, since the tree, the other junk, the berm, the abandoned equipment etc all looked pretty ugly to me as I came in dead stick. I would have been able to flare and drop her in the clearing just to the right of the wreck as seen in the previous panel above. That was my plan anyway. Too bad she turned left like that and spoiled everything so much.

[barnstorm2]

If I have any parts left over from my rebuild I will let you know.

Looks like you will have a lot of salvageable parts.

.

[NoWingsAttached]

Thanks much, Tim, and everybody else here for your consoling thoughts and suggestions. It means a lot to me right now. I hope to get back to fixing her up soon, although moving has really put a tourniquette on my time.

[NoWingsAttached]

About the fuel consumption and what was left in the tanks, FAA regs etc like that: I had just finished my fuel consumption computations. I was using 4.5 gal per hour. Not bad for a 100hp 2 cycle, eh? I filled the main tank with 6.5 gal, so I figured it was good for 1.4 hrs. The auxilliary tank had 1.5 gal, so another .3 hrs. I thought I was good for at least 1.7 The Hobbs was at 1.3 when I took off the last time, and I was in the air for 1 min 30 seconds when it quit. My GPS showed I started moving on the ground at 6:45pm. It showed the engine quit at 8:01pm. There was fuel left, plenty by my reckoning, but it appears the problem was the lack of a sump in the seat tanks. I was climbing out when it quit, and quite possibly when I nosed it down to maintain airspeed and then tried to restart, it starved it for good. Anyway, I'll never let it run that low again.

[Resasi]

Thanks for those and once again glad it turned out with you around fit and ready to get back there when you can. Hope the move goes OK.

[gyro]

Greg, that pic from post # 28 looks like the rotor head is completly torn loose.

was it? and did it also tear the control rods loose?

Also when the machine rolled over and blades struck the ground did it toss you and the airframe or did it just rip the RH off?

[NoWingsAttached]

The pivot block broke completely, thus the rotorhead is completely off. The control tube under the flywheel also sheared completely, as did the pushtubes. The rotor head was completely loose from the gyro, nothing at all holding it on. The rotor struck the left HS and the rudder about 9" above that. The two frame tubes under the pilot's seat sheared a few inches in front of the seat, and the right tube was pushed into the front of the seat tank. Lucky it wasn't my leg! I tell you, what really saved the brunt of the machine, and my @$$ was the way I had triangulated the frame completely. I'll post some detailed pics of the gyro pretty soon to show what broke, what bent, and what helped to prevent this from being worse than it was. I was still in the seat, strapped in, and wish now that I'd been using the shoulder harness instead of just the seat belt. I'm going to reinstall the shoulder harness before I go up again. In a roll-over, like this, it really would have helped a lot.