Amateur/Home Built/Experimental
Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 7; Flight Crew Total 300; Flight Crew Type 5
Training / Qualification; Situational Awareness
Ground Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action
Human Factors
This incident occurred on a day in which I hadn't flown for over a week and was not intending to fly; however after preflighting the aircraft I decided to check the Pitot/static system as I had had some issues prior to the incident in which the airspeed indicator didn't give me a reading. I had dissembled the system and realigned the tubes from the Pitot tube and the static plus the AOA and thought that they were correct. Since that seemed to be the case I proceeded to inform ATC that I needed the longest runway since the winds were calm that day and since for safeties sake the longest runway would give me a better chance of avoiding problems should they arise. The purpose being the glazing of the new brake pads and I needed to get the airplane to at least 35MPH and then apply hard braking force. To do that on the ramp area would be to close for comfort in the braking aspect of taxi. After getting clearance to use the active runway I proceeded to advance the throttle about an inch and move the control stick to the neutral position at which time the airplane left the surface surprising me as it had never done this before and the only thing I can think is the angle of incidence must have been off on the elevator to force the airplane into the air. In any case I pushed the power in as the airplane was still climbing and the nose dropped and I pulled slightly on the stick but the plane dropped hard and bounced at which time the plane seemed to stall and dropped again harder and that must have splayed out the main wheels which in turn dropped it onto the nose gear which broke the nose gear then chewed up the prop and dropped the nose unto the runway with no injuries to myself. I should have flown my simulator first to avoid the unfortunate lack of flight time and/or not even attempted to test any aspect of operations because I was not adequately prepared that day.
Reporter stated that during high speed taxi test of the pitot static system the aircraft became airborne; came down hard on the main gear; and broke the nose gear bolt which collapsed the nose gear. This caused contact of the propeller with the runway and the nose coming to rest on the runway.
Pilot performing high speed taxi test became airborne and collapsed the nose gear.