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F1 Tail Damage

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sailvi767

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https://www.flickr.com/gp/25022684@N08/r3wpF4

I understand a F1 Rocket recently suffered a structural failure in GA. Pilot was able to land safely. Does anyone have details? I would be very interested in the altitude and airspeed where the horizontal stab failed. Rumor is it was a VNE overspeed. I have pics but zero luck posting on here. Damage is impressive. Edit:Link posted
G
 
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Holy smokes! That makes me pucker, and not in a good way! Glad they got it on the ground safely.
 
https://www.flickr.com/gp/25022684@N08/r3wpF4

I understand a F1 Rocket recently suffered a structural failure in GA. Pilot was able to land safely. Does anyone have details? I would be very interested in the altitude and airspeed where the horizontal stab failed. Rumor is it was a VNE overspeed. I have pics but zero luck posting on here. Damage is impressive. Edit:Link posted
G

We know about the incident and are actively investigating it. We're not going to speculate until we get the flight data recovered and have done a thorough inspection on the damage.

The a/c involved was built in the early 2000's and first flew around 2010.

For the moment, we can say that what is known is that a relatively new Rocket pilot and passenger were very fortunate to get back on the ground safely. Some acro was involved and it may be an overspeed event. Or it may have hit a UFO. The point is, we don't know yet.

I would ask that everyone resist the urge to speculate. Speculation is not data. Without hard data, which we are working to obtain, it is all too easy to make statements that simply aren't true.

I will take this opportunity to say again, as I did in the recent RV-6 thread, VNe and Va are not suggestions. It is critical to understand the limitations of these sheet metal designs. While they are capable of aerobatics, they are NOT designed to be unlimited acro machines and they can bite you if you don't respect their limits.

More later.
 
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BTW, the EFIS screenshot that Sailvi767 has posted next to the damaged F1 has NOTHING to do with that aircraft.
 
I did not realize the efis shot was included. It is as posted not from the incident aircraft. I would be very interested if the incident aircraft has the ability to retrieve the info on the state of the aircraft when the failure occurred. The why it occurred is of course important but in this case I am looking for the state of the aircraft when it happened. The why part can wait until a through investigation is done.
I think it’s great that you are actively involved in researching this and appreciate the time and effort it will take.
George
 
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https://www.flickr.com/gp/25022684@N08/r3wpF4

I understand a F1 Rocket recently suffered a structural failure in GA. Pilot was able to land safely. Does anyone have details? I would be very interested in the altitude and airspeed where the horizontal stab failed. Rumor is it was a VNE overspeed. I have pics but zero luck posting on here. Damage is impressive. Edit:Link posted
G

Photo date on Flicker was 7 January, 2020 - a week ago. Are the black spots/blotches an N-number cover up? I'm in sort-of disbelief that the plane flew in that condition. Miraculous if it did.
 
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I'm not sure the new tailfeather angle will catch on... At least, not without afterburners.

RF-4E-take-off.jpg
 
Photo date on Flicker was 7 January, 2020 - a week ago. Are the black spots/blotches an N-number cover up? I'm in sort-of disbelief that the plane flew in that condition. Miraculous if it did.

Those blotches do appear to be redaction of ID. The original pics don't have that. Good post by Vince. As he said, the community is combing through this one, looking at all aspects (structural, aerodynamic, etc).

Bob
 
Dang! I didn't realize those laser pointers had gotten that powerful!

Seriously, it looks s a testament to the aircraft to be able to land with that much damage!

Good luck sorting through the damage and figuring out the cause.
 
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Glad to hear they landed safely. Airplanes are replaceable Loved ones are not. Im Looking foward to the valuable lessons to learned from the factual report.
 
You gotta like the ductility of aluminum. It doesn't shatter like CF. This failed, plastically deformed, but held together. Gotta love efis that record data too. Having airspeed and G will be very helpful. In the old days you would have nothing except the memory of the pilot who would probably be too rattled to be sure what he saw.


I wonder if there is other wrinkled or buckled skin or longerons that we don't see in the pictures. I guess they will have time to check it carefully. They won't be going flying anytime soon. Got some laundry to do too I expect. :eek:
 
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As Tom said Wow.

If I made it to the ground after that I?d be on my way to the closest casino.
I second the Wow and kudos to the pilot for landing this safely.

If I made it to the ground after that I'd be on my way to the closest shop to buy a new and clean pair of underwear.
 
Hard to imagine how they had any pitch control to get it back down, after seeing those pics. Very lucky indeed.
 
HS spar still there

A photo showing the HS rear spar still there.

Aircraft landed KPVG in Hampton Roads, VA, Dec 24, 2019 to my understanding.

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gopro

Would have loved to see the gopro footage of this - doubt it exists unfortunately. Amazing.
 
Congrats to the awesome pilot!

Absolute miracle that it allowed a clearly excellent pilot to land! Well done!

It looks like the right elevator buckled (1st), an 8 elevator has failed like this and was posted here with pictures. I thought the Rockets had the H bars extended into the front spar more. It will be interesting to hear the experts evaluation of the parts if they get posted.

Sure glad it did not end like the 7's with inflight failures.
 
It will be interesting to see what caused this failure. The r/h stab spar webs seem to have failed in an aft direction, however the anhedral of the l/h stabilizer would indicate negative g loading. It is quite amazing this guy was able to get this thing on the ground in more or less one piece. Glad everybody is OK.
 
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Positive G?

It will be interesting to see what caused this failure. The r/h stab spar webs seem to have failed in an aft direction, however the anhedral of the l/h stabilizer would indicate negative g loading. It is quite amazing this guy was able to get this thing on the ground in more or less one piece. Glad everybody is OK.

In a positive G loading, isn?t the tail loaded down?
 
Yep -- but we don't know the condition when the failure occurred. We only can see the condition now, in the hangar, following (perhaps) some maneuvering to make the airport. So it's premature to attempt to analyze this event.

I'm darn glad and amazed that they made it back. Those folks are good.

Dave
 
Agreed

Yep -- but we don't know the condition when the failure occurred. We only can see the condition now, in the hangar, following (perhaps) some maneuvering to make the airport. So it's premature to attempt to analyze this event.

I'm darn glad and amazed that they made it back. Those folks are good.

Dave

I totally agree. .I wasn't stating that the position now is representative of the forces at play that caused the failure.
I do have a question for the experts out there. .This looks like a standard RV8 empenage, right? You can see the Hs-810 and HS814 angles, I thought the rocket tails had more parts than a standard 8 tail? Were the original rockets with a non balanced rudder?
 
I totally agree. .I wasn't stating that the position now is representative of the forces at play that caused the failure.
I do have a question for the experts out there. .This looks like a standard RV8 empenage, right? You can see the Hs-810 and HS814 angles, I thought the rocket tails had more parts than a standard 8 tail? Were the original rockets with a non balanced rudder?

The F1 empennage is not a standard -8 tail. If you look carefully at the original Flickr pics you can see the elevators have riveted trailing edges. Also, I believe nothing is pre-punched on the F1 tail.

Skylor
 
There have been (are) several different tails installed on F1 Rockets. I believe the most recent iteration is the MkIII tail. I believe it wasn?t offered for sale until 2018.

People have used RV4 and RV8 tails with various mods on F1 Rockets, too.
 
Enough!

OK, I'll admit that it took some better than average skills to safely land this Rocket. But before you heap too much praise on the guy, remember he is the one who violated FARs and exceeded aircraft
published limitations in order to cause the damage.

I'm reminded of the AirTran pilot who flew through forecast weather in 1998 resulting in severe hail damage to the DC-9. He was hailed as a hero by the media.

I'm going to save my praise for those who overcome adversity not caused by their own incompetence.
 
This situation is alarming, but the fact that Rockets are not raining down from the skies leads me to believe there are some extenuating circumstances at play in this case. I'm very interested to see what those are before I form an opinion.
 
....But before you heap too much praise on the guy, remember he is the one who violated FARs and exceeded aircraft
published limitations in order to cause the damage....


I don't think that's been established yet. So far, all I've seen are three photos showing damage. The actual incident investigation will figure out what did happen and then we'll know too.

So let's not assume that the pilot violated FARs etc. That might be entirely wrong. We don't know yet.

Dave
 
It's an early F1, with a CZ-produced tail kit, aka Mk1.... but until we examine it (soon) even that is subject to verification.

As I asked earlier, please stop speculating on what you think happened.

As Toolbuilder said, these planes aren't raining out of the sky, so there were likely extenuating circumstances.
 
I don't think that's been established yet. So far, all I've seen are three photos showing damage. The actual incident investigation will figure out what did happen and then we'll know too.

Dave

Plus ONE, despite ample request/warning not to speculate on the cause.
 
Just a thought---since this seems to be the 3rd owner maybe of this aircraft-----what was its history, and was there possibly prior damage from previous owners that never showed up?
I dont know much about piloting stuff, but purposely exceeding the published limits sounds -----, especially with someone in the back seat that may not be aware of the situation. SCAREY thought.

NOT to impead our friends that fly aerobatics, but surely they fly within the speed envelope published by the manufacturer. And my hats off to those test pilots that push the envelope. I'm guessing there is more to the story here.

Tom
 
It's an early F1, with a CZ-produced tail kit, aka Mk1.... but until we examine it (soon) even that is subject to verification.

As I asked earlier, please stop speculating on what you think happened.

As Toolbuilder said, these planes aren't raining out of the sky, so there were likely extenuating circumstances.

Has it been reported to the NTSB as required (or the FAA)? And if so, are they interested in doing an investigation? If not, who will do the "investigation"?
 
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Hey all - as a Moderator, I think that this thread has already included so much speculation that it has broken Doug’s rules. On the other hand, it does include some fascinating information, and it is so tightly woven with the speculation, editing it is way to much work. It also appears from my searches of the FAA and NTSB sites that it may not have been entered into any of those (which usually happens within 24 hours of a report), so we don’t want to force those involved into a bad position with respect to Regs.

So I am going to lock this for now, and let Doug figure out what to do with it. [ed. I concur Paul. Thank you. v/r,dr]

Paul
 
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