May 4th, 2013, 16:58
Had my first "Top Of The Mark" moment on the leg into Steamboat. Thought I would be cute and approach runway 14 from a sharp angle and fairly hot to cut a few minutes of time. What I didn't fully consider was that there was a 23knt crosswind going on. The Viking has a large rudder area and it will weathervane as much as it can so when I touched down hard I bounced and then crabbed and bounced again. As I was wrestling the mad Viking, it got away from me and I veered off the runway towards the ramp into a spin and busted a main. Thankfully Lionheart modeled in plenty of scrape points so I was able to slide to a stop before hitting a parked Mooney. Damaged the said left main, left wing and part of the tail. Hope they have Bellanca parts in the area!
My passenger slowly got out of the plane and muttered something about heading over to the motel to change his pants...