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Originally posted by placido
I find it really hard to believe that a plane crashing at stalling speed didn't suffer more damage. I really do think that she touched down first and bled off some speed before the nose gear collapsed.
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It's kind of hard to collapse the nose gear *before* you touch down. :-)
Bear in mind, this wasn't a *crash* until the nosegear collapsed...up to that point it was just an off-airport landing. *All* landings take place at stalling speed or very close to it.
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Anybody know the stalling speed of that type of aircraft?
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Something on the order of 40-50 knots, depending on the flap configuration. But the aircraft remains flyable right up to that point. The ideal technique would be to fly the approach at around 60 knots with the flaps down, then bleed the airspeed off by gradually raising the nose a litle bit at a time as much as possible without gaining height until the wings stall. The elevator should still be effective at that speed.
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Unh? Correct me if I'm wrong but flaps give an airplane more lift thus allowing it to fly slower than normal. Retracting the flaps would have stalled the plane dipping the nose....or am I being think? [/b]
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WIth the airplane already held nose-high with the elevator, as near as possible to the ground, yanking the flaps would have caused it to settle on it's main gear more firmly than otherwise, creating more opportunities to dump energy in ground friction and better wheelbrake effectiveness. While doing this, full nose-up should be applied with the control yoke, keeping the nosegear off the ground until the airplane is no longer going fast enough for the elevator to hold the nose up; the elevator then suffers an aerodynamic stall of it's own, and the nose drops. If you're still too fast to not hurt the nose gear at that point, there wasn't much you could do; the ground's just too darn soft.
I think that may have been the case here.