Incident Overview
On 1 November 2001 at 1615 UTC, an Aeronca 7AC Champion (registration G-BRWA) experienced an incident at Hook, Hampshire. The aircraft, built in 1945 and powered by a single Continental Motors Corp A65-8 piston engine, was being flown by a 71-year-old private pilot with 557 total flying hours (251 on type). The pilot held a Private Pilot's Licence and had flown three hours in the previous 90 days. No passengers were on board; the pilot was uninjured.
Sequence of Events
The grass strip at Scotland Farm is oriented 250°(M). The first half of the landing distance available was waterlogged. The surface wind was assessed as northwesterly at two to three knots. The pilot positioned the aircraft on a right base leg at 1,300 feet amsl and turned right onto final approach after passing over pylons to the east of the field. During the descent, forward vision was severely limited by the setting sun until the aircraft was low enough for the sun to be behind trees across the western end of the runway. At that point, the pilot noticed a microlight aircraft that had just become airborne in the opposite direction and was approaching.
The pilot decided not to go-around because it would put him back into the glare of the sun and he would lose sight of the other aircraft. Instead, he closed the throttle, increased the rate of descent, and landed immediately. Touchdown occurred on a waterlogged portion of the runway, causing the aircraft to rapidly come to a halt. As the aircraft decelerated, the tail rose slowly until the propeller made contact with the ground, then sank back down.
Aftermath
The pilot, wearing lap and diagonal upper torso restraint, escaped without injury. The aircraft was bogged down and recovered using a tractor. The pilot reported that he had no radio and, because only one other aircraft was resident at the strip, he had not performed an overhead join to look for other traffic. He also stated that the strip was waterlogged for almost half its length. Damage was limited to the propeller tips.