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Successful water landing

... and managed to stay upright. Max alpha at the right moment probably helped, well done!
 
The people walking on the beach appear oblivious to what is happening behind them!
Lucky escape for the pilot.:eek:
 
are the flaps extended? looks like it stayed upright and the pilot was not injured. good deal. Sully award!

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How to latch the canopy open?

Looks like he opened the canopy. Hope we get more details about what happened.

Glad the pilot is ok and congratulations to him on achieving such a good outcome in difficult circumstances. It’s reassuring to know that it’s possible to remain upright on water in an RV - although I wonder if that’s related to the lower stall speed of the 9?

Like the pictures we saw from the RV water landing in Italy, these photos suggest the open canopy moved forward during the rapid deceleration of landing. I’ve felt for some time that it could be advantageous to have a means of latching the canopy open to aid egress in a forced landing situation, particularly given the tendency to finish upside down.

I too hope we get to hear more from the pilot.
 
It’s reassuring to know that it’s possible to remain upright on water in an RV - although I wonder if that’s related to the lower stall speed of the 9?

you bet it is. good to see this positive outcome. the 9 wins again.
 
high AOA

I don't believe you can get this high AOA with flaps. I don't see flaps but maybe they are there.

... looking as closely as I can, I don't see flaps. I think it was a no flap belly flop. perhaps that is what made it successful.

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pictures

I've taken the liberty to put these pictures here in case they get deleted from the twitter.

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Great result.

Does this suggest flaps up should be SOP for water landing, to minimise likelihood of flipping? Or down for minimum speed at impact.

Whatever, it looks like this guy made all the right calls once the engine had stopped!
 
Great result.

Does this suggest flaps up should be SOP for water landing, to minimise likelihood of flipping? Or down for minimum speed at impact.

Whatever, it looks like this guy made all the right calls once the engine had stopped!

would you rather be upside down with a bump on the head or right side up with a bump on the head?
 
would you rather be upside down with a bump on the head or right side up with a bump on the head?

Obviously we'd all rather be right side up, but the question is whether having the flaps up or down was a significant factor in preventing the flip or not.
 
Just thinking aloud with no experience in this (thank heavens!), but I don't see a huge difference in stall speed with flaps. What I *do* see is a pitch difference. So I'm thinking that no flaps will help me keep that nose up at a cost of a couple knots airspeed.
 
I think it’s hard to try and apply lessons from a RV9 water landing to the 7,8,14 because of its much lower approach speed. It appears the pilot did a outstanding job and had the aircraft at max AOA a foot above the water.
 
Very well done. I had assumed after the Italy video that a water landing was an automatic flip. The Italian pilot did an excellent job as well.
 
Tail

The tail in the last picture makes me think it’s a 6 or 7. We can’t tell if it stayed upright from the pictures shown.

-Andy
 
The tail in the last picture makes me think it’s a 6 or 7. We can’t tell if it stayed upright from the pictures shown.

-Andy

Yep, the apparently shorter wing span and tapered horiz stab seems to indicate this was not a -9A. But an excellent outcome regardless.
 
I took a water egress course last year prior to flying the Caribbean. In answer to your question, flaps up was preferred.
 
Yep, the apparently shorter wing span and tapered horiz stab seems to indicate this was not a -9A. But an excellent outcome regardless.

this is called "plane envy", at a subconscious level. I can understand that.
 
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First thing I saw in the first photo was the open canopy and immediately thought "that's going to close on impact." And yep, on the last photo you can see it half-way there.

I wouldn't want the canopy clocking me in the back of the head when it slams closed, or closing on a passenger's hand (if they put it there to brace themselves or in preparation for getting out).

The wingtips suggest -7A, the VS/Rudder looks more like -6A to me but that could just be the perspective of the photo. Definitely not a -9A.
 
Wow I hope to never that kind of bad day!
He had quite the nose up attitude just before impact, maybe the up flaps aided with that.
Also, the picture sequence suggested the prop stopped in vertical position. I wonder if that aided for a critical fraction of a second shielding the nose wheel from digging into the water & delaying the nose over.
 
Arm Chairing It

Always good to let the data roll in and just appreciate what we do see.

I'm a TU canopy guy and am always dismayed by the what ifs of these scenarios. I have the jettison linkage available but not sure what if anything I could do with that in an actual ditch scenario. If time was available it might be better spent beating holes in the canopy. For example where does the canopy go once released? Does it slip back and do something unfortunate to the rudder right when alpha control becomes critical?

My two cents from the Safety world is to join the voices who are talking about a latching mechanism for the aft canopy position. That's a simple, light, failsafe change that doesn't seem to have any downsides except a little hassle every time you want to slide forward.

Be nice to hear from the Van's team on that as a modification.
 
Didn’t even wet his feet, ok, barely maybe ;)

Ditching an RV has already been discussed at length (pancake, slip, etc techniques), yes, also here on VAF.
Looks like the pilot got it all right in a diced situation. Much to learn from this, thanks for the demo :p
 
what about deployed flaps contacting the water and causing a downwards pitching of the plane into the water. could that be a factor? whereby, if the flaps are retracted the downwards pitching from the flaps is eliminated.
 
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Also kind of a morbid thought, but I wonder how much fuel were in those tanks... seemed to float pretty well before the fuselage filled up.
 
Skills to live by!

Its more about the Training and Skills to LIVE By ! This aviator appears to have them and was going to survive as a result of them. BRAVO !
 
what about deployed flaps contacting the water and causing a downwards pitching of the plane into the water. could that be a factor? whereby, if the flaps are retracted the downwards pitching from the flaps is eliminated.

I think it's unlikely that deployed flaps would ever touch the water while the aircraft still has enough forward velocity for them to make any difference in pitching moment. The gear sticking down 3 or 4 feet below the CG and touching the water when the aircraft is at or above stall will be the predominate pitching force. For this reason, touching down at the lowest possible flying speed in my opinion will make the biggest difference in preventing a flip, therefore I think the flaps should be deployed.

This picture clearly shows the plane pitching forward long before the wings are near the water. The drag of the landing gear in the water (along with the cowling) will have the plane just about stopped buy the time it settles back to where deployed flaps will hit the water.

Skylor
 
I think it's unlikely that deployed flaps would ever touch the water while the aircraft still has enough forward velocity for them to make any difference in pitching moment. The gear sticking down 3 or 4 feet below the CG and touching the water when the aircraft is at or above stall will be the predominate pitching force. For this reason, touching down at the lowest possible flying speed in my opinion will make the biggest difference in preventing a flip, therefore I think the flaps should be deployed.

This picture clearly shows the plane pitching forward long before the wings are near the water. The drag of the landing gear in the water (along with the cowling) will have the plane just about stopped buy the time it settles back to where deployed flaps will hit the water.

Skylor
That's my best "assumption" as well, by the time the flaps get wet, the gear has already done it's work (good or bad).

I have an RV-4,, always wondered if dragging the tail would help to prevent a flip, or just make it worse.

Tricky thing,, if you land close to the shore, in shallow water, that's perfect if it doesn't end up it's back. Problem is, if it DOES turn upside-down, then you could find yourself in a situation where the shallow water will prevent an escape.

Dunno,,
Maybe better to expect a flip and land well enough off-shore to allow an under-water egress.

Looks like the lucky fellow in the 6A, had enough water below him to open a tip-up,, (if he had one)
 
not much data for RV ditching flip over.

1) Italy - RV7, flaps up, normal landing AOA, engine operating, flipped (aircraft may have had damage from an in-flight collision)
2) Washington - RV6A, flaps up, maximum AOA, engine not operating, prop vertical, not flipped
 
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not much data for RV ditching flip over.

1) Year 2004, Hawaii, RV8, landing config unknown, engine not operating, propeller position unknown, flipped
2) Year 2017, Italy - RV7, flaps up, normal landing AOA, engine operating, flipped (aircraft may have had damage from an in-flight collision)
3) Year 2021, Washington - RV6A, flaps up, maximum AOA, engine not operating, prop vertical, not flipped
 
AoA and flaps

Lots of terms here all kind of merged together.

The AoA is classically defined as the angle between the chord and the relative wind. So when the flaps go down the chord line tips up and without doing anything else the AOA goes up (without the airframe changing angle) Hence the need to lower the nose to avoid ballooning as the flaps program down.

Most of our AoA measurements are coming from differential pressure on the Pitot tube. In this system there is no way to determine airframe angle to relative wind, just local flow under the wing. So as we induce more upwash (as we do by lowering flaps) the AoA detected will be affected by that upwash. So if we are using differential pressure on the pitot tube the answer about airframe angle is complicated.

If the desire is to keep the nose up higher at stall onset, we are probably going to have better luck with the flaps up. We can demonstrate this by our stall testing.

If the desire is to get as slow as possible then perhaps flaps are helpful, but this would need to be determined and not assumed because we are going to be flying in a different induced drag environment so close to the ground. What is stall speed deep in ground effect, and what is that delta between Vs and VS1?
 
Having tried to stop a boat really fast, a wave catches you pretty quickly. If flaps were down it could help the wave hold the plane down. They could just as easily lift the tail up as you skidded to a stop.

I think I might get close and then drop a wing first. Maybe spinning would keep me upright. What a scary situation where skill and luck may be equal. The same landing could have gone much different with a little more or less wave action.

Great job by the pilot.
 
does putting the tail in the water firstly (with high AOA) cause it to become sticky and unable to flip because the water is adhering to it? when the main wheels contact the water it's probably going to yaw left or right and if the tail is in the water it will kick up a lot of water spray in opposite yaw direction and that will take a lot of energy out of the event. I believe the main thing is to get the highest AOA angle and get the tail in the water first, you can only do that with the flaps retracted.

the stick must still be in the pilots gut because the elevator is still up even though he is being pushed fwd by the g forces. he is still flying....

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