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CTLS Damaged on Landing This Morning


solarguy54

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This morning, the pilot of a 2008 CTLS came in for a landing on Cottonwood AZ (P52) runway 32.  Winds were light.  The 200+ hour pilot (30+ hours in CTLS) reported seeing something on the  approach end of the runway and initiated a go-around.  On the second approach as they were about to touch down, they reported that something flew up in front of them causing the pilot to react instinctively resulting in the aircraft veering left and impacting left of the runway on a dirt berm.  There was substantial damage to the aircraft but it came to rest sliding to a stop in a ditch.  The prop impacted the berm shattering all three blades, the nose gear was bent back and sideways breaking the bottom engine cowling, the right gear snapped off and impacted  the bottom of the fuselage leaving an 18" longitudinal crack in the fuselage, the left gear also snapped off and each wing alternatively impacted the ground shattering each wing tip and winglet assembly.  All of the control surfaces are intact as is the interior of the aircraft and the fuel tanks.  While the pilot was emotionally shaken they are physically fine.  There was no passenger on this flight.  This is one tough aircraft.

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Yes, glad for no injuries. Depending on engine damage, total cost, some specific damage spots, and insurance coverage; it may be repairable.

I had a low speed flip in a ditch without damage to myself and not a lot of damage tothe plane, but the spar box at the wing root was damaged and FD would not fix it. The insurance company paid and sold the airframe.

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3 hours ago, Roger Lee said:

Was it a woman pilot?

Somebody you know Roger, or are you otherwise familiar with the situation?

Glad nobody was hurt, sounds like a strange occurrence.  Bird, debris, Chupacabra...I wander what "flew up at her" on short final...?  Sounds to me like the airplane will be a total loss.

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This was my plane for seven years.  I sold it to my friend and she had just recently soloed.  It's very sad to see this but, fortunately, she is OK.  I will definitely spend time with her about this and let her know that "stuff happens" and not to give up.

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From the description and photo, this will be perfectly repairable, assuming the wings didn't hit too hard and damage the spars at the root.

The belly crack will be a simple fix.

The firewall is likely going to be damaged, that's a little bit more involved.

Possibly the gear sockets, but those just get a few layers of reinforcement when that happens.

The wing tips are what will take some skill to fix, however, but not terrible.

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  • 1 month later...

Update:  USAIG decided that the cost to repair it was reasonable.  I have been working on it in my shop for the past month.  Determining the correct parts to order has been a bit of a challenge to say the least.

While the prop was shattered, the prop flange run-out was 0 degrees.   I pulled the gear box and sent it off to Lockwood for a rebuild.  The run-out on the crankshaft was also 0 degrees.  Then I used the Rotax tool for testing crankshaft twist.  Again, 0 degrees.  Yeah!  Didn't have to have the engine rebuilt.  Saved $14K.  I think the insurance company would have totaled it if it needed an engine rebuild.

While the landing gear was wiped off, there was no damage to the main gear sockets so we just need to replace the main gear.  The nose gear folded under the aircraft, but there was no firewall damage.  So, I removed the small motor mount from the main motor mount and was able to swing the engine out and to the passenger side enough to  remove the main motor mount and replace it without removing ALL of the plumbing.  During the process, I found a badly chafed SCAT tube from the air filter to the intake plenum.  So I'm replacing it with SCEET (double walled).

The steering rods were bent.  To replace them, I used a scope camera to line up the rod end joints while a helper inserted the steering rods and screwed them in.  It is VERY hard to get your hand all of the way in there and I have the scrapes on my arm to prove it.  The Vividea Ablescope is amazing.  It's a tiny thing, transmits via wi-fi, and has a 180 degree bend feature that I have used extensively.  You can insert it into a spark plug socket and check out the valves.  I had 2 iPad mini's; one for me and one for my helper.  After trying to screw it in by myself for a couple of hours, with the camera and a helper I was done in 10 minutes.  Highly recommended.

Both wingtips were heavily damaged (shattered), but there was only minor aileron damage.  No wing root damage which was amazing.  Looks like the wings "slapped" the ground alternately.  A composite instructor is coming over from Germany to replace one wingtip and repair the other as well as fix some of the dings and dents.  He'll be here for a couple of weeks.  Really nice guy over Skype and email.  When he's done, I'll be certified to do composite work in CTs.  I built a Cozy IV from plans in the past, but am looking forward to learning from him techniques specific to Flight Design.

Overall, I have been VERY impressed with this aircraft.  So impressed that I decided to buy one and use it for flight training.  So we now have a 2009 immaculate CTLS in our hangar for training and a 2008 CTLS under repair.  So far, we already have 5 Private Pilot students and one Sport Pilot.  Tomorrow I'm cutting a radio ad.  We live in the Verde Valley of Arizona (Cottonwood, Sedona, Camp Verde), and there hasn't been a flight training facility here in about 15 years.  Turns out that there's LOTS of interest in flight training.  Some people want to come out and do intensive training for a couple of weeks while their spouse hangs out at one of the many Sedona spas.  Nice!  We do the 5-hour CT transition training as well.

Also, Rainbow Aviation is holding an LSRI 2-day class at our facility in October.  Contact Rainbow Aviation if you want to sign up.

Sid Lloyd
Kestrel Aviation Services
LSRM - Aircraft/Weight shift
iRMT - Service/Maintenance
www.kestrelaviationservices.com

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  • 1 year later...

It will have been done at overhaul.

The only out of round part that we can do is the front part that drives the gearbox. The rest can only be done with complete disassembly and we don't have the information for it (such as checking journal out of roundness)

Distortion is done with a rotax tool placed in the plug slot, and the use of a flowerpot gauge. The crankshaft components are interference fit, instead of one piece. You're checking to see if the crank managed to twist. There's a table that states the allowable degrees from zero.

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The crank twist  measurement is a must and more likely to happen at high impact rpms or with a Warp Drive prop. The crank is a pressed together assembly and the it must not be out of spec by any more than 2 degrees. You check this measurement with a large dial bolted to the front of the engine with the gearbox off. and then insert a plug in each cylinder and when the cylinder hits the plug then you read the degree mark on the dial. You must not have more that 2 degrees between all cylinders. If you do the crank is junk and it would be cheaper at that point to buy a new engine over an overhaul.

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3 hours ago, Roger Lee said:

The crank twist  measurement is a must and more likely to happen at high impact rpms or with a Warp Drive prop.

Why is that?

Please fill us in regarding the comment on the Warp Drive prop. There are some Rotax powered LSA’s which come standard with the Warp Drive prop.

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Solid carbon fiber and wood. It's far more solid than most of our composite props. This issue has proven out over the last 20 years with Warp props. Good for off asphalt landings if you pick up a small stone compared to a composite, but bad if you hit something big or more solid. Many people buy warp props for either a lot of dirt landing strips and because they are 1/3 - 1/2  the price of something like a Sensenich or the E-Prop.

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11 minutes ago, Roger Lee said:

Solid carbon fiber and wood. It's far more solid than most of our composite props. This issue has proven out over the last 20 years with Warp props. Good for off asphalt landings if you pick up a small stone compared to a composite, but bad if you hit something big or more solid. Many people buy warp props for either a lot of dirt landing strips and because they are 1/3 - 1/2  the price of something like a Sensenich or the E-Prop.

Warp drive props are solid carbon fiber not carbon fiber and wood.  They are heavier though.

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