Ground Loop

AT-301 ground loops at a very low speed just as the tailwheel settles. You can see the pilot was operating the rudder as he was supposed to. It appears that the loss of control was a function of not locking the tailwheel, by pulling the stick back, once the tailwheel is on the ground.

[barryb]

I have about 1400 hours in tail wheel aircraft. When I first started, an old WWII military vet told me that pilots usually did wheel landings keeping the tail wheel off the ground as long as possible until it plopped down on its own and then kept back pressure on the stick to keep it on the ground. Maybe he was wrong, but it sure works for me.

[mikecavanagh]

Making a wheel landing one must let the tail come down after initially putting pressure on the main wheels with forward elevator.  Then as airspeed begins to slow, elevator to neutral the tail comes down, and first thing I learned in a tailwheel airplane, tailwheel on the ground then stick all the way back always. Holding the tail up is a good way to ground loop as the rudder runs out of authority with the tail off the ground. Only in a strong. tailwind taxiing would you need forward stick while taxiing.  A good pilot can hold the tail up with brake, but that is advanced and helpful for protecting the tail wheel on rough ground.  While doing this the brakes take over for the rudder as rudder control is lost as speed decays. Not hard to do but not recommended for beginners. Weight on the tail wheel helps keep it straight.

[sstolarik]

I flew “right seat” with a vet pilot that landed an Extra 200 downwind. The characteristics of the ground loop looked similar, the pilot lost command of the craft, the slight tailwind slowly pushed the aircraft’s tail off to our left, and we left the runway and lost a main gear. Heartbreak.

[walkercl]

stick back, stick back, stick back!!

[damiandiesel]

looks to me from the skid mark as the plane was turning left he had the left brake locked with no evidence of right brake application. also, tailwheel shimmy is lessened by not putting pressure on tail.I dont think the tailwheel or the shimmy was the root cause, more right rudder and right brake may have helped.

[gustavoturbay]

shimmy!! something common on air tractors when the pilot don´t lock the taill wheel..I´m a AT 602 pilot

[acdc]

The issue was the lack of left aileron used to counteract the left crosswind. This lack of input caused the airplane to drift right of the centerline and caused the pilot to have to use left rudder to correct back to the center. (Left crosswind should have left aileron and right rudder) At that point he was out of options. Hope he didn't get the aileron. In a crosswind aileron stops the drift and rudder keeps the aircraft straight down the runway.

[stukabomb]

@ Willie: Same thing happened to me once in a Citabria. The tail wheel spring popped off on landing and the rudder started pulling like crazy to the right. It took a quick reaction and a bit of luck to keep that thing straight.

[lucaas]

Interesting! Would you be okay with me featuring this in an episode of Weekly Dose of Aviation? Of course you will be credited both in the video and in the description.

[jaseskildsen]

Might not have been the pilot failing to lock the tailwheel, could be an A/C thing. I've seen a 502 that had all sorts of problems locking the tail wheel; it shimmied all over the place. Common problem in the AT

[bobsakamanos]

Fulling castoring tailwheel. Why wasn't it attached for directional control.

[carlchristensen]

The left tail wheel spring was not attached to the rudder horn.

[leithwhittington]

It seems to me that the tailwheel was not locked or linked to the rudder inputs and skittered about freely. Check the main swivel bearing and locking mechanism. After a similar incident on my aircraft, I replaced the main swivel bearing and locking mechanism and it has been fine since.

[curtc]

The rudder stopped moving as soon as the tailwheel was down. No back pressure on the elevator either. Completely pilot induced. Never stop flying the airplane.

[westbeachum]

Accident waiting to happen when you’re missing a tail wheel spring . Seen it with my own two eyes.

[Chaotic]

That was the first thing I noticed...he went quite a long ways without locking the tailwheel.

[MinutesofAviation]

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

[douglasrodrigues]

Looks like the ground loop happend because of that tail wheel defect. Of course if there wasn't enough rudder control left, the pilot could have used differential braking. He was doing a good job maintaining perfect directional control during the wheel landing so I'll have to blame this one on that defective tail wheel and perhaps a bit of crossword component. As far as automatically pulling the stick back on touch down, I only automatically did that as a student. I've got somewhere around 3, 000 actual tail dragger landings in everything from a J-3 cub to a T-6, and I have never ground looped an airplane, even when the steerable tail wheel wasn't functioning. Of course, I was trained in a different time. My tail wheel transition consisted of 5 touch and go landings. Now-a-days, I think pilots are trained to be fly-by-the-numbers airplane drivers

[thTrombone]

9 👎's from YouTubers who think this video is clickbait, as certainly a *ground loop* _must_ occur in a vertical plane like with roller coasters.

[forrestallison]

Obviously he didn't put enough tail pressure in but...is that wheel turning properly? Could a spring have popped off?