WestWind Airlines

Yes...That was the question that was on my mind when crash suddenly appeared on my screen!! I was sitting at the runway hold point in Rio de Janeiro in a DHC8-300. I had been waiting about 10 minutes for a TAM F100 to land and finally got clearence. What happened next is really wierd! I put up the throttle to begin my taxi on to the runway, about 5 seconds after I had done this a big puff of grey smoke appeared from the front of the aircraft followed by Crash!! Now the only thing that I could see happening is either the nose gear buckled or the front tyre burst. Before the flight, however I noticed that the aircraft was a bit nose heavy, but I ignored it. Anyone any ideas?

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Eoin Coates
Senior Command Captain
Real World Student Pilot
Frankfurt am Mein-Hub Manager

"If the thought came into my head, I would go out and buy a gun"- Herb Kelleher's reply after being asked if he would start another airline.

I just started flying the DASH8-300 but I've noticed when I taxi I get a lot of bounce in the nose gear and i get the puffs of smoke quite a bit especially when I slow down using the brakes to begin a turn.  I've never had it happen when I just started rolling again.  That is kind of odd?

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Jose Lopez
AHM - KDFW
WWA2149 CAT IV

I know. The Dash 8, is kinda famous around Europe as an aircraft with terrible landing gear! SAS Commuter got rid of there whole fleet of Dash 8's because a lot of there landing gear was buckling on landing but I never heard of anything on taxi. I still think the aircraft was a bit nose heavy. I think this was the main cause.

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Eoin Coates
Senior Command Captain
Real World Student Pilot
Frankfurt am Mein-Hub Manager

"If the thought came into my head, I would go out and buy a gun"- Herb Kelleher's reply after being asked if he would start another airline.

This is the same problem we had with the Boeing 757, until Mike Gibbs tweaked the aircraft config file. I'm assuming you are flying FSX.  I have flown the Dash-8 a couple of time in FSX and did not experience this problem, however, the B-757 did not do this at all airports either. I wasn't experiencing any problems with the 757 until I took it to the airport where Mike was experiencing the problem.  This kind of thing would show up periodically in FS9 as well, and it had more to do with the scenery than the aircraft. There was one taxiway at Pittsburg (KPIT) where the aircraft would sink to its belly into the concrete (fresh concrete???)  Have you tried different airports?

EDIT:  One thing you can do to avoid the crash is to taxi at a slower speed over that portion of the taxiway.

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Bob S.
Senior Command Captain
E.V.P. Scenery

Yes, I did the return journey and all was good. I was in Belo Horizonte. I have been flying the Dash 8 for a while and have been teaching my brother how to fly the Dash 8 and theres never been a problem.

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Eoin Coates
Senior Command Captain
Real World Student Pilot
Frankfurt am Mein-Hub Manager

"If the thought came into my head, I would go out and buy a gun"- Herb Kelleher's reply after being asked if he would start another airline.

WWA2104:

Yes, I did the return journey and all was good. I was in Belo Horizonte. I have been flying the Dash 8 for a while and have been teaching my brother how to fly the Dash 8 and theres never been a problem.

Well then, it was most likely a fluke with the airport.

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Bob S.
Senior Command Captain
E.V.P. Scenery

I noticed that during flight testing of the DASH8 myself.  I wasn't able to solve the problem and the model makers (PAD) had no idea how to solve it either.

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Scott M. Stone
WWA1712 - Cat-III - Director of Aircraft
VATSIM 1018857 - C1 Controller - KZSE
Private Pilot - ASEL + Complex + IFR (almost)