Well, it had to happen eventually. I tried some more touch-and-go landing practice in Titusville this morning. The first landing wasn't so great so I throttled up and went around again. The second approach was looking really good. I was aligned with the runway, glide slope looked right, just looking like a good landing all around.
Then the landing lights at the runway started going red like I was getting too low, so I gave it a little throttle to make sure I'd make it to the runway. I throttled back to idle and prepared to land, but my nose had pitched up a bit when I gave it the gas, so my view of the runway was not great. I was still lined up correctly, but I was higher than I thought so I started my flare sooner (higher) than I should have.
The stall alarm went off, but I under-reacted because I thought I was almost on the ground. As you can see though, I'm still pretty high.
Next thing I know, the nose pitches down pretty hard and I head for the runway, nose-wheel first. You can see I'm still lined up good, but it really works better if the rear wheels touch down first.
Bang! Nose into the ground and the plane starts spinning to the side. No control at all at this point, I'm just along for the ride.
My final resting place, as seen from the control tower. Oh, the shame!!I suppose later on I'll get my propeller unbent and practice landings some more. Lesson learned - treat any stall seriously, even if you think you're just inches off the ground.
So what do you have to do to fix the plane? Is there just a "make plane new" option? Or do have to run around the airport picking up glowing Health pills? :)
ReplyDeleteI get the impression from your previous posts that there's a gradual wear-and-tear on the planes, so is there routine maintenance you're supposed to do, or something?
No, there's not really any continuity between flights. You start off with a brand new plane every time. The wear-and-tear issues are within a flight. If you bank too hard or run the engine too hard you can potentially have issues in-flight, but it'd have to be a long flight to matter I would think. Or you'd have to really abuse the plane.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think they'd have some kind of campaign mode or something where you would have to nurture your plane like you would a MMORPG avatar. You can play FSX online, but there's not a persistent online community that I'm aware of.
Yeah, it should be a MMORPG where, at first you can only afford a Wright Brothers-esque plane, and with enough experience points, you can then purchase useful items like altimeter, landing gear, etc. What?!
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