Prop strike yesterday (and propeller specific noise level)

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Of course you know that the rumour has it that the Comanche wing was constructed after the M20

Hmm, things are meshed much more than that:

In 1954, Bill Piper was looking for a design to compete with the Bonanza. The engineers at Piper were busy with other projects at the time, so Bill Piper asked his friend Al Mooney if Piper could buy the new Mooney MK-20 design that Mooney had not yet started producing. Al wouldn’t sell the design, so Bill Piper asked Al Mooney to come up with a totally new design. Al submitted a design to Piper that was an all metal 4 place monocoque construction with retractable gear, a 180 HP Lycoming, and a stabilator in place of an elevator. The stabilator was a new design, an all flying horizontal tail. The cabin size of Al Mooney’s design was a bit small, so the engineers at Piper increased the cabin size and the first Prototype PA-24, N2024P, was created in 1956.

The Comanche is more or less a Mooney, just with a bigger cabin and some design choices which were popular in the Piper factory line.

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Here the pilot clearly saw the gear lever move and immediately applied max power. Otherwise it would have been like all the others… stunned silence and WTF happened?

Yah that’s right. What you should see, however, in any retractable aircraft is (one of) the green light(s) going out, because it only illuminates if the respective micro-switch is pushed by the gear. But honestly, I don’t know if I was able to react fast enough to do anything about it.

UdoR wrote:

What you should see, however, in any retractable aircraft is (one of) the green light(s) going out, because it only illuminates if the respective micro-switch is pushed by the gear.

You should – but doesn’t always happen. Many years (20?) ago I was flying with a friend who flew a Marchetti 205. This airplane has a weird design to indicate that the gear is down and locked: the main gears have a sort of plunger that extends into the cockpit and physically shows gear up or down. No way to misinterpret that. The nose gear, however, has a micro switch with a single green light in the cockpit. My friend was flying back home (I had flown the outbound) and performed the usual pre-landing checks. All good, plunger and light agree our gears are down. A perfectly smooth landing was, alas, followed by the horrific sound of the prop hitting the runway. Nose gear had collapsed on rollout. We got out, pushed the airplane off the runway. By then, the fire brigade had arrived (there was no fire), we all lifted the plane up and someone manually pushed the nose gear into the locked position. It held and the plane was towed to the maintenance facility on the field. What had happened was, that the microswitch was misaligned and the gear didn’t fully lock. The airplane ended up getting a new prop and engine.

Late to the party, still sad to hear of this @Mooney_Driver ! On the other hand, „Glück im Unglück“ that nobody got hurt and the rest of the plane is intact!

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Here the pilot clearly saw the gear lever move and immediately applied max power.

Is the pilot looking at the gear lever for abnormalities during the flare and touchdown?

Or have I misunderstood?

MD, sorry to hear about the mishap.

Knowing that it doesn’t help you in that situation I became aware, that the slipper clutch installed on a Rotax is a big advantage in case of a propstrike since it protects the engine against excessive loads. During the Rotax fly-in in Wels two weeks ago I witnessed a Bristell TD tipping over its nose and didding the prop into the grass while taxiing out. Four hours later the pilot flew home after the engine got inspected by a Rotax mechanic with a spare propeller installed.