Amateur/Home Built/Experimental
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 140; Flight Crew Total 2500; Flight Crew Type 13
Fatigue; Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft; Ground Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged
Human Factors; Weather
On a personal pleasure flight; flying low (500-1000 AGL) over extremely remote terrain (well more than 500 ft from an person; vessel; vehicle or structure) and careful not to operate in a careless or reckless manner; I descended low towards an open area; simulating an approach to landing. I misjudged my height and the wind conditions and unintentionally hit the surface. The wheels grabbed and I began to decelerate. In spite of adding power slowly the plane continued to decelerate. Finally in spite of being at full power; the plane continued to decelerate. It was unable to regain flight; so I committed to landing; by now at a very slow speed. The rollout was flat and smooth; but upon hitting a muddy area; the plane nosed over out of control. Damage was limited to the propeller and spinner; which struck the ground; [and] the engine cowling. Other than the plane; no object was damaged. No person was injured. I was able to push the Light-Sport plane to a nearby road where it was towed away.Contributing Factors:Airplane: A Light-Sport plane is more vulnerable to gusts and has less power.Attitude: In retrospect; had I added full power immediately; I may have been able to regain flight. Probably the overconfident macho attitude 'I can handle it' contributed the incident.Conditions: Trees; hills; and the open area probably produced gusts and directional changes in the wind.Different planes: I had just recently flown my Cessna T210 16 hours during the week; and I may have instinctively treated the Light Sport as if I were still in the T210 regarding the slow adding of power so as to not over-boost the turbo.Corrective Actions: Emphasis on transition both from light to heavier aircraft and the reverse from heavier to lighter.Human Performance Considerations:Macho attitudeGreater familiarity and comfort - training the body to respond in another airplane than the one being flown.Fatigue: The non-reportable incident occurred after a long week of travelling.
Avid Mk IV pilot reported inadvertently touching down in a muddy area during a simulated landing which resulted in a slow speed nose-over.