Light Sport Aircraft
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 35; Flight Crew Total 7500; Flight Crew Type 125
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
I was the Flight Instructor/Pilot in Command; working with a light sport student on a refresher flight in anticipation of endorsing the student for another 90 day solo endorsement.  After performing a series of climbs; turns; descents; slow flight; power on and off stalls in our practice area; we returned to the airport for some take offs and landings.  There were numerous aircraft in the pattern which required us to do a left 360 turn to  enter the right downwind leg at the Tower's request.  We entered the pattern normally; ran the landing checklist; and configured the aircraft for landing with flaps 15; at an airspeed of 65 knots.  On turning to final; the Student was about 100 feet to high so I aided him in a forward slip to get the aircraft into a better landing position.  There was a variable crosswind from the left as observed from the windsock; estimated to be about 7 knots and approximately 20 degrees off of the nose of the aircraft.  I decided to stay on the controls with the Student to aid him in the landing.  We executed a normal crosswind landing setting the left wheel down followed by the right wheel and finally the nosewheel.  On setting the nosewheel down there was a loud noise to which I immediately pulled the nosewheel back off the ground in anticipation of a flat nose tire.  I slowed the aircraft as much as possible while keeping longitudinal control and gently set the nosewheel down onto the runway.  The nosewheel collapsed causing the propeller to strike the ground and the aircraft to skid and come to a stop on the runway.  There were no injuries to us so we performed the shut down checklist; reported to the Tower we were ok; and departed the aircraft.  I feel there was a mechanical failure of the nose gear which was not seen on the pre-flight inspection due to the nosewheel fairing covering the entire nose gear assembly.
LSA instructor pilot with student experiences a nose gear collapse after a normal landing.  The aircraft was not equipped with retractable landing gear.