The International Cessna 170 Association

Well I can tell the story now that the pain is over. I'm tired so I will be short, I'll follow up later.

A few weeks ago landing San Carlos with the family in an 8 knot crosswind. I guess my scan broke down and maybe I left the tail up too long. (I don't know because I still to this day can't figure out why this happened). I was slowing and getting ready to put the tail down and I started heading right. I tried full rudder and brake but it kept going. I thought we were going to do a slow ground loop when the left axle snapped (not steel) and folded the left gear (180 with pponk mod) under the plane . Damage to left wingtip, prop, left stab. The pponk mod completely ripped the bottom of the airplane off on my side. I'll post pics later but insurance totaled the plane.

San Jose FSDO wanted punishment and made me do a 709 ride this morning (a reexamination of my Commercial and ATP Ride). Luckily the ride was a non event and my friends let me borrow a taildragger for the ride.

This sucks

Steve,

Very sorry. I've seen pictures. It's not pretty. It happens. We are glad no one was hurt.

Glad the 709 ride went Ok. The Feds and the accident reports and finding can be the most upsetting part about an accident such as this.

Man, that is too bad! Sorry to hear about it. Sometimes conditions just go out of your control. I had an almost identical thing happen in my C-195 and was only able to save it with takeoff power and a side trip into the grass to regain control. Luckily my axle didn't break. My buddy that landed just ahead of me in a C-180 had it happen to him first. I thought he had just messed up a little but then it happened to me when I landed. The 180 has more rudder than the 195 and he didn't go off the runway but I did.

The wind was 4mph at about 45 degrees to the right. I was coasting down thru about 40mph just lowering the tail when it felt like the tail was just pushed around by a big hand. Full left brake and rudder did no good other than to leave a black stripe from the centerline of the runway to the edge and the turn kept tightening up. I could see it was going to go around so I crammed full throttle and waited a few seconds and the turn slowly stopped tightening up as the rudder became effective until it came around the other way and I took off from the grass. I thought the right tire had blown out but everything was fine when I came back and landed. I also had no explanation of what happened other than it might have been a whirlwind coming around the hangars. I had never seen anything like that before and never have since.

Really sad was looking fwd to meeting up again at the end of the month. Glad everyone was ok, sometimes things happen and can happen to anyone

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Sorry to hear this, I know how you feel.

at the cost of labor and parts the most trivial thing will total the aircraft.

So sorry to hear. Yours was a beautiful airplane from the pictures I've seen of her. I'm glad nobody was injured, but that is a scary set of circumstances under which that accident occurred, particularly for someone with as much tailwheel experience as I take it you have.

I presume this was on pavement, not grass?

That's bad news. Sorry to hear about the airplane but glad you are ok.

Steve you mention the axle was not steel. Was it hollow aluminum or solid aluminum?

Hollow aluminum. Axles and 406 elt were on next years to do list.
I operate off some pretty tight strips sometimes, this was on a nice big paved runway.

I ...JUST this last week...increased my hull-value to help cover this sort of thing a bit. I hate to hear this. Sorry for your loss.

Sorry to hear this! I was looking forward to meeting you at Saline Valley sometime.

You say you had the hollow aluminum axles. There are at least two types, one that is the same thickness all the way to the flange (light) and another that gets very thick just inboard of the axle nut (usually referred to as "reinforced hollow" axles). Do you know which type you had? I'm just curious, because I've only heard of one incident of a broken "reinforced" axle, and that was just a rumor.

Thanks,

I believe it was the old SRAM manual that described how BOTH hollow aluminum axles break similarly.

This is an example of how the knowleger-bank at this club is so helpful, as long as we USE it. (The only axles anyone should allow on their airplanes are SOLID aluminum, also known as "ski" axles....or the common STEEL axles, which may be hollow without concern.