I'm the proud owner of N16AV, long EZ built by Kent Ashton. Kent is truly a master builder, and finished the plane in 2014. I recently purchased it from him and he was kind enough to fly it out to southern California from North Carolina. He also spent a few days out here transitioning me into the aircraft. During my transition I found the aircraft to be a little hotter than the Cessna 172 that I trained and certified in. Several of my initial landing attempts, well let's just say I stressed the gear. I also know that I bounced the nose gear up and down off the runway numerous times in my first 30 landings and I suspect this to be the cause of my nose gear collapse (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGRVgcN0_kg for GoPro video from inside the cockpit).
After spending the afternoon with an FAA accident investigator, it appears that the strut itself or the NG3 bracket failed. During the incident, I also picked up some kind of foreign object and put a small nick in the propeller blade. Ground services at my airport were kind enough to tow me in, however during the tow, the nose strap came loose and the airplane tipped backwards, fortunately not on the propeller, but there is some minor damage to the wheel pants and the rudders.
Having never built an airplane for, I look forward to making the repairs and making aircraft my own. Kent has been kind enough to take a look at pictures of the damage and, I'm sure, the mentoring me through the process. I'm also hoping to enlist the help of several local members of the EAA as I put the airplane back into flight condition. I intend to document process so that other newbies like myself can appreciate the design durability of this aircraft and ability to put it back into flying condition after an accident.
My first step will be to do a detailed inspection of the damage the aircraft. That will be my next couple of postings. I will post pictures of the damage and the fixes as it's repaired.