Get water/snow/ice in the brakes and it freezes. One frozen brake can do bad things to your runway track.

I'd see if the issues correlate with cold temperatures.

Mike C.

Now that there is scrutiny of the airframe, it will seem like an epidemic. Just looking at the AIN. There were 8 reported runway accidents Monday, 7 yesterday, one was a PA46 Most major brands were represented, including many Beech's, some jets. Interesting looking at the last couple of weeks, the planes MOST represented, with nothing in close second for gear collapses were C182's and C172's. Maybe the pilots forgot to check that they had 3-greens and locked

perhaps if the aircraft the pilot flew mostly in the past was an aircraft like the Cirrus where there was no connection between the rudder pedals and the nose wheel, the pilots had no instinctive awareness that when you land you do not only need to worry about dealing with a crosswind and the appropriate rudder inputs

for the Malibu etc, you need to remember when you lower the nose you need to straighten out the nose wheel with the rudder. If you have never done an action much you will not have the trained in reactions to react correctly to the situation.

I think you may be on to something there, Bill. All the airplanes I've flown (other than a seaplane) have had rudder/nosewheel interconnects. I haven't had any issue with the PA46 ground handling with over 500 landings and that may be because I subconciously remove the crosswind rudder input upon nosewheel touchdown, or at least am prepared to make an immediate adjustment. This may not account for every single runway excursion, but I have a sense that "castering nosewheel reflexes" may have resulted in a significant number of excursions. And, as Chuck posted there are several runway incursions each day in all sorts of types. I wonder if runway excursions have become more prevalent since the advent of the popularity of the Cirrus and other modern castering nosewheel types. Lets not forget the PA46 airframe has been in production for almost 40 years with over 2,400 having been produced. This seems awfully late in the game for an issue with the airframe to present itself.

Piper provided a letter on the matter to the MMOPA members yesterday. I and many other MMOPA members found it to be reassuring, confidence inspiring and generally left me with a sense of pride towards Piper the company and my Meridian. The letter provided some substantive data that indicated the cause of some of the incursions and corrected some incorrect statements that have been circulated. Piper is working with the NTSB on the matter, but I fear they may have a difficult time proving a negative. I don't care to post the letter here, but another MMOPA member may, or if you are considering a PA46 you could (should) join MMOPA and view a copy of the letter on their forum.

I'm confident that if there is an issue, Piper will fix it, but I'm also pretty confident the majority of these incidents are operator error. Either through improper preflight precautions or reflexive responses. A comment was made earlier regarding the several Service Letters that Piper has put out regarding the nose gear recently, of note those Service Letters are by and large just a reiteration of procedures that are already in the POH and Maintenance Manual and we should be doing anyway.

Is there something different in these airplanes? Does the nose wheel turn more than others, when using so much rudder to work a slip in a crosswind?

Every airplane I've ever flown with a steerable nose wheel has, AFAIK, a centering cam that prevents the wheel from steering when the strut is fully extended. This so the the wheel is straight when it first contacts the runway, and secondarily to prevent the wheel (or more likely a large wheel fairing) from acting as a second rudder.

Is the PA46 unusual in this respect? My only experience is a single landing from the right seat more than twenty years ago, and I don't recall anything odd about the airplane's ground handling.

I have read that people are suspicious of the mechanism which rotates the gear 90 degrees with retraction. I'm sure there are more retractable aircraft that do this but apart from the Cessna 337 I can't think of any off the top of my head.

even with centering cams if you have a nose wheel direct connected to the rudder and if you have significant rudder in at speed and don't center the rudder when you put the nose down the wheel will be at an angle and want to steer to that side. the centering cams only control the nose wheel when full up. they make sure it is straight when it extends but the cam does not control the angle full down.

if you lower the nose very soon after touch down at speed it will not take much of an angle to really make it dart off the runway.

It is no big deal, but you do need to be ready for it and have the instantaneous reaction to steer the nose wheel if it starts off to one side. basically the happy feet you develop especially when flying tail draggers. this is one of those things you need to do without thinking about it.

steering with your feet is a built in reaction with most tricycle gear aircraft I know about that are trainers.

Absolutely and all the more reason to shift your focus to the far end of the runway and fine tune that lined-up direction with rudder. If the plane is aligned, the the NW will be straight and aligned. If you don’t have the long range perspective, you may be fooling your self that the rudder pedals are equally depressed and the nose wheel is straight. Some pilots seem to quit flying completely in relief that they have landed on terra firma as the mains hit the ground.

Keep flying the plane straight down the runway, pulling back the yoke to the very stop.

Best,

Tom

If you are doing it right in the Malibu there are two landings: The mains and then the nose gear all while the stall warning is blaring.