Elevator failure at KJYO

Man he hit hard! Glad everyone was ok


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Peter Anderson said:
Man he hit hard! Glad everyone was ok


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As he slows, the stuck/damaged surface loses aerodynamic authority and the airplane does what it does absent a stabilizer. Nose first.

Part of a controllability check at altitude is to figure out the slowest speed one can attain pitch/ roll authority not to exceed touchdown speed for the computed weight, then reference that speed as the new limiter on approach. Naturally this can be much faster than an undamaged airplane would require. This pilot did well considering the abnormal occurrence most people don't train for.

Skyrys62 said:
Looked like no flaps. Not sure if that's good or bad in that instance.
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That s a good thing brother. He had compromised pitch authority, flaps induce additional pitching moment that requires additional pitch authority to counteract for the same aircraft attitude. Authority he no longer had available due to the apparent damage. No flap is the prescription here.
 
Nose wheel collapsed?

Fly the airplane to the ground, then directional control with rudder and brakes?
 
hindsight2020 said:
Part of a controllability check at altitude is to figure out the slowest speed one can attain pitch/ roll authority not to exceed touchdown speed for the computed weight, then reference that speed as the new limiter on approach. Naturally this can be much faster than an undamaged airplane would require. This pilot did well considering the abnormal occurrence most people don't train for.
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One evening right before my PPL checkride my old crusty curmudgeonly CFI and I were finishing up in the practice area. As we prepared to return to the charlie, he told me to get him as close to the runway as I could without touching the yoke. I could use my feet, the trim, and of course the throttle, but that was it. I learned that with gentle prodding of the rudder you can indeed get the plane to bank and turn. If you stomped to hard too quick, though, it would just slip and skid. So approach gave me my vectors, and I used the throttle, rudder, and trim to set up the approach. We did pretty good, about 20ft above the runway he told me to grab the yoke and flair. It was an interesting exercise.

I don't know if this guy had any trim authority or not, but he did damned well with the deck he was dealt.
 
This is from a FB post from someone at that school.


Hey everyone - this airplane was on our line at JYO in Leesburg, VA. During flight, it seems like the left elevator failed somehow. During the elevator oscillations, the trim tab rod was sheared off the empennage. It was an incredible job by the CFI (ex-Air Force T38 instructor and KC-135 pilot) to keep the plane in the air and get it back to the airport. Once he started to roll the throttle out on landing, the nose pitched straight down due to the elevator flapping in the wind.
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video is on YT now.
 
Fly the airplane as far into the crash as you can. Best way to survive. Airplanes can be fixed and/or replaced.
 
That looks more like a Navy landing.
 
I hope VASAviation does a video on this one.


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Bill said:
One evening right before my PPL checkride my old crusty curmudgeonly CFI and I were finishing up in the practice area. As we prepared to return to the charlie, he told me to get him as close to the runway as I could without touching the yoke. I could use my feet, the trim, and of course the throttle, but that was it. I learned that with gentle prodding of the rudder you can indeed get the plane to bank and turn. If you stomped to hard too quick, though, it would just slip and skid. So approach gave me my vectors, and I used the throttle, rudder, and trim to set up the approach. We did pretty good, about 20ft above the runway he told me to grab the yoke and flair. It was an interesting exercise.

I don't know if this guy had any trim authority or not, but he did damned well with the deck he was dealt.
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I've had an instructor that made me do pattern work in a 182 without using the yolk until we were about to touch down. It was a great lesson in trim and using power to use help with pitch. We were going to 20 degrees of flaps as 30 made it hard to trim out. It was an awesome exercise.
 
AA1 had an elevator failure at a Grumman fly in in TX a long time ago. Happened in the flare. I believe they determined the pulley / cables were original and had never been replaced in over 30 years.
 
Thank God the YouTube is show in tall portrait narrow screen format, really enhances the viewing pleasure

Because this:
upload_2021-1-20_14-54-23.png

is so much better than this:
upload_2021-1-20_14-54-38.png



..sorry, that's some excellent airmanship by the pilot, but filming in portrait should be a crime.
 
Somehow the left outboard elevator hinge bracket separated from the horizontal stabilizer, taking part of the stabilizer rib with it. Not sure if that was the cause or the effect of the failure, but either way it appears the pilot lost elevator authority. Good job getting down in one piece. Flaps would have been fatal, with additional nose down pitching moment.
 
I'm curious to know more about the cause of this incident because I think you would have to lose both yoke control and trim systems to lose all elevator authority. Plus that departed elevator hinge bracket is VERY stout, as is the outboard rib of the stabilizer. There has to be more to the story.
 
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