GROUND LOOP T-6 Landing Mishap!

explanation to the famous t-6 texan landing mishap (after loss of tailwheel steering due to broken spring..), pilot walter eichhorn has pictures of broken spring laying in the tail after landing.
if interested please feel free to contact walter on his privat phone: [phone]
pete ruppert photography, division flyyy, sky monkeys,
no casualties-
glory2he LORDjesus!

[Tedd-cdev]

After reading some comments it is time to correct the most wild speculations.
During landing one control cable of the tailwheel got stuck, both cables are connected to the rudder via 2 springs, so steering the rudder to one side disconnected one spring and the other pulled the tailwheel to a 90 degree angle to the rudder, during rollout the force on the rudder was strong enough to keep the plane straight but when slowing down the force reduces and the wheel took over and that was the moment of the tight left turn, the runway is only 3meters wide and at that point was a small dip in the grass where the right maingear rolled through just enough for the right wing to whack the ground.
We removed the wing and it was repaired after about 4weeks we could reinstall the wing and modify the control cables so that would never happen again.
I know who’s fault it was but I’m not going to tell, what I can say is that it was not a pilots error.

[chucklemasters]

how could anyone possibly know when the spring was disconnected. i'm guessing it happened during the ground loop itself. rudder is not nearly as powerful as aileron on the landing rollout. almost all pilots are unaware of their aileron inputs on the landing rollout and steer like they would in their car which is backwards. stop the video a few times as the right wing is coming around you can see the right aileron is up which means he steered right as the plane was going off the left side of the runway which is totally backwards. this will guarantee a ground loop since no amount of right rudder will stop the left ground loop once you steer that aileron right.

[michaelking]

"It's never happened to him before."

Every pilot gets to say that about something in their career.

[theflash]

Walter Eichhorn is a true flying legend with over 36000 hours flight experience and he is one of only worldwide 110 members of „Living Legends of Aviation“

[peteruppert]

You can plainly see opposite full rudder and the elavators up with full back pressure on the stick when the tail comes around. Looks like he lost the tailwheel (spring) when the tail wheel impacts the ground first in a pretty hairy crosswind landing.Appears the pilot was doing all he could against the tail wheel that was going the wrong way. Try pushing a tricycle backwards down a narrow sidewalk as hard as you can on a really windy day and you will understand

[pcar]

Doesn't matter how much total time. How much tailwheel time does he have and how much in the T6. There was no mechanical failure before the ground loop. He was able to taxi away just fine turning left and right after landing. The spring broke during the ground loop otherwise he would have realized it was broken on takeoff. He also had incorrect aileron input.

[paulclarke]

The reason the spring was broken was probably because his initial touchdown was hard and it got banged pretty good.  It appeared to me  that the tailwheel stayed straight the whole time [so that didn't make him turn  and also just before he went into the ground loop I saw him give rudder in that direction [left]  ....why would he do that?  Never flown a T-6 so no idea how effective the rudder is at slow speeds but some tail draggers don't really need the tail wheel to control until they're at taxi speed.

[goatflieg]

Thank you for sharing the explanation.  Wishing Walter all the best.

[daveenyart]

I'm stunned that folks would fault this guy for a tough landing with broken equipment. He has 19, 000 air hours and for the guys who chastised him...that is a boatload of landings. Good grief.

[jimjonrs]

19, 000 hrs? I could do this with half that time.

[nightwaves]

He got his tail dragger advanced training rating with that experience.

[robertborchert]

Well, sitting at a keyboard you can imagine you're in a perfect world. Hell, you even have the advantage of hindsight. Flying a taildragger is no joke. Especially if you have the slightest mechanical mishap, all you can so is your best.

Hope the starboard wing repair went smoothly. I raise my glass to you sir!

She'll fly again. My brother flies a beautiful SNJ. I understand.

[gruberjohann]

Could not see a malfunctioning rudder. During the last sequence of landing, there was given correct counter momentum with the rudder but it did not prevent from spinning.

[Mike-]

The dreaded ground loop once starts to turn too much nothing you can do until the wing hits and stops it

[MinutesofAviation]

That‘s a stunning capture! May I feature this landing in one of my next episodes? Of course with a link back to your original video. Cheers!

[fritzkatz]

Yes... the guy is a superstar but even superstars... especially as they pass 70... can have an off day. Blaming this on equipment and/or weather is chickenshit.  If the spring was broken before takeoff he would have noticed (even heard) it while moving the rudder during preflight walkaround. Like the narrative, the film is edited to conceal the true problem.... removing his sinking in suddenly on short short final segment (could have seen that even with partial obscuration by glider trailers if not cut out).  He dropped it in all kattywampus, pulled hard just prior to impact, and with the airframe at an angle to its ground track smacked the tailwheel with enough vertical and sideload to break the spring. Is there an AD for this spring breaking on the hundreds of others still flying?  Doubt it. Anyone can see how out of shåpe he is while airborne in the rebound at 00:39 and that is NOT a tailwheel issue. May have underestimated the weight of his possibly schnitzel-supplemented rear pax or just momentarily inattentive.  No significant crosswind evident on takeoff, from dust drift, or via treetops on landing.  This incident does not diminish his decades of superior achievements in his prime. Shit happens, learn from it, keep flying... but no image-preserving Riefenstahl Aryan Superiority BS please.  Hoover still has it together at 90+

[fritzkatz]

Uhh, Ralph.  Nothing was broken at that point.  That is how it is SUPPOSED to work.  That is why tailwheel is connected to rudder cables at the horn by springs... not more cable or a pushrod.

[telecabo]

Outch! Can I use this video in a compilation I'm working on? I'll credit you in the video.

[cuplove]

Putting his private phonenumber out there is kind of nasty guys…

[Cassiusisback]

to all those who claim bs because of taxiing: 1:16 full right rudder, plane still going left.... how do u explain?

simple: a plane has differential brakes. if u brake left u go left.