A Series Of Events

Editorial Staff

Monday, February 27, 2023 at 02:27 PM ET

Verified

Lisa Turner/Kitplanes

Key Takeaways:

A pilot experienced a hard landing at a high-altitude airport, resulting in violent nosewheel oscillations, brake failure, and a hangar collision, primarily due to an unannounced 9-knot tailwind that significantly increased ground speed at touchdown.
The incident underscores how high density altitude combined with tailwinds drastically increases ground speed, which can induce nose gear oscillations and lead to critical equipment failures like a severed brake line and loss of directional control.
Key lessons include the importance of checking damping friction for free-castering nose gear often, and the need to consider landing opposite to the indicated runway direction at high-altitude airports if a tailwind is suspected, regardless of AWOS reports.

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For 18 years, I flew a tricycle-gear Aero Designs Pulsar XP experimental out of a non-towered, high-altitude airport in Southern California, making at least 2500 takeoffs/landings at the airport. Last September, I flew a breakfast flight to an airport about 30 nm away, landed with buddies and all was well.

Landing out of the return flight, the AWOS indicated calm winds, density altitude at 8300 feet. I set up for a routine landing on Runway 26, following a Mooney. I approached at normal speed: over the fence at 80 mph. I touched down at 75 mph and dropped the nosewheel to the runway. That’s when the castering nosewheel began violent oscillations. I had checked the system a week before and made several subsequent landings with no problems.