I’ve never flown an aircraft with conventional landing gear, but I think the idea is that you’re fully stalled when you touch down. i.e., the airplane isn’t going to float. It also saves wear on the brakes. In a tricycle-gear aircraft, you’re also ‘done flying’ when you touch down; but you hold the nose wheel off to bleed speed.
Have about 100 hours in tailwheel aircraft. A three point landing will happen at a lower speed (usually a bit faster than the stall angle of attack, but it depends on the airplane) and so use less runway. In that video they are trying to land very short so a three point landing is best.
Landing with the front two is called a “wheel landing” and is considered better for cross winds or gusty conditions because you are going faster and so have more control available. But it does mean you will need more runway to stop.
IT’S ALIVE, at least on shore. The P-8 that ran off the runway in Hawaii has been recovered to the runway. Landing gear is intact and sound. Now the hard part of cleaning and assessing the damage of saltwater to the airframe and equipment. P-8s do have additional corrosion protection though immersion is a bit extreme.
They used inflatable bags to raise and roll the aircraft back on land. Many photos.
I think most here remember the guy who intentionally jumped out of his plane and let it crash as a YouTube stunt. He has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for obstruction of justice (you’d think he’d get something for intentionally crashing his plane):
Everyone look at meeee!!!1!
Idjit.
Reminds me of Stuart. Look what I can do! (first one at about 00:45.)
From Whack-a-Mole’s LA Times link:
Investigators said Jacob never intended to reach his destination but instead planned to eject himself during the flight …
“Eject himself” is a bizarre way to try to say “bail out”.
I suspect he will get a bill for removal and hazmat cleanup. Plus the cost of the plane.
Maybe he can do some prison videos.
General Aviation:
I believe he went in a helicopter and removed the plane and put the pieces in the garbage.
This sucks. One of my colleagues is building a Vans and I’m not sure how this will work out for him. He’s put in a lot of time, effort, and money.
Well, on the upside, Chapter 11 bankruptcy is meant to keep the business operating. It may or may not manage to do it and there may be delays in getting parts and support but, in theory, your colleague’s project has a good chance to continue (maybe delayed a bit but such projects take time anyway).
Yeah I get that. He was already aware of the financial difficulties they were having.
It’s pretty plausible that somebody somewhere will pick up the pieces of the business and provide some support to the existing fleet. This has happened many, many times over the course of aviation history whether the planes are homebuilts or airliners.
If your friend has lots of money already sent to Van’s for as-yet undelivered phases of the overall kitplane, that money is probably gone. Or very nearly so. Ouch! OTOH, if your friend has all the parts on hand, this BK ought to be no real impediment to finishing the plane.
Good bet that there will be a year or two where anyone wanting spare parts or kits will be stuck until the court process ends and the new entity gets their stuff together. At which point customers will be paying the new entity the new prices for the new stuff. And those prices will be a bunch higher. Or at least based on experience with other similar restructurings that’s what’ll happen.
Best of luck!
Vans is the only thread holding the future of GA together in the US.
Per discussions on the various homebuilt aviation boards, people who have paid for parts but not gotten them yet will have the option of a refund or paying the difference for the new price to get anything. At least that is the current projection, but the bankruptcy judge gets to decide.
I’m pretty sure Vans will continue to exist, but prices will go up (somebody at Avweb said 32%, but its’ all guessing at this stage).
He has deposits for various bits and pieces that haven’t been delivered yet. I’m not sure how much money is actually tied up, not a whole lot as far as I can tell. He’s been mostly working on the wings (which is another issue, as apparently there is a manufacturing fault in some of the ribs).
Never say “never”, but it’s a pretty unusual business that has the honesty to go Chapter 11 while it still has all the kit deposit money in escrow, not already spent on salaries and factory rent.
Absent that escrow, the only source for money for refunds or to complete & deliver the already ordered kits is the business’s new owners. Which can be a real tall order.
I certainly hope for the best. My experience teaches me to fear the worst once the word “bankruptcy” rears its head. It’s always a situation of too many mouths to feed and nowhere near enough porridge.
Good luck to every RV owner & builder.
Money that came in after October is in escrow, but anything before that has been spent. The new owners will be the old owners. “Van” the original founder has come out of (mostly) retirement and is providing the loans that are hoped to get the company through this. We’ll see how it turns out.
The biggest asset is probably the thousands of people (myself among them) who aren’t just customers but are fans. Some of that goodwill has been lost with the parts problem that was the final trigger, but I think many will still be willing to buy parts/kits.
I had no idea that “Van” had retired. The new owners must have mismanaged the company pretty bad, because Van’s is one of the most successful aircraft companies of the past three decades.
There are over 11,000 Van’s RV aircraft registered and flying. There’s probably also thousands under construction. If the total is 20,000, that’s almost half the number of Cessna 172’s flying. The RV series is up there as one of the most successful light aircraft designs ever, homebuilt or not. Piper built 32,000 Cherokees of all types since 1961.
I wonder if they didn’t expand their product line too much. They have a LOT of different aircraft. Back in the day, there was the single-seat RV-3, the two-seat tandem RV-4, and the side-by-side RV-6. Other than a four-seater, that pretty much covered the market for light sport aircrvaft, I thought.
But now they have the RV-6, the RV-7, the RV-8, 9, 10,11, 12, and 14. I’m a fan (and own a plan kit for an RV-6 I bought 20 years ago which I’ll get to any day now…) and I can’t keep all these models straight. An RV-8 is a slightly bigger RV-4. The RV-7 is a slightly modified RV-6. The RV-9 is another modification of the RV-6. The RV-10 is a slightly larger version of the RV-6. The RV-14 is a slightly larger RV-7. THe RV-12 is an LSA aircrvaft. The RV-10 is the four seater.
Each of those looks to me like an attempt to capture a little more incremental market share at the cost of maintaining inventory for another different aircraft. And the problem is that it can take decades for some people to finish a kit, so you have to keep all the parts on hand even for defunct designs. That problem will get far worse when they have to deal with 12 different airfraft designs.
They should have added an RV-10 with four seats, and that’s about it.