Narrative:

My wife and I were on a personal vacation trip. At our first fuel stop I attempted a landing. There were strong winds; a sizable crosswind component; and gusts. My first contact with the ground resulted in a light skip. The second contact was a bounce so; in keeping with my strict procedures; I added full power to go around. At that moment; we experienced wind shear that dropped the plane on the main wheels which bounced; causing the tail wheel to impact the runway. There was a bang at the tail followed by unusual movement of the rudder. A landing at that point was not possible; so I continued to climb out and retracted the flaps.I suspected the tail wheel was broken in some way. I decided the safest course of action was to land at a larger; controlled airport with emergency equipment. I turned to [nearby towered airport]; contacted the tower; explained the problem; and [requested priority handling]. I landed on runway 26. I executed a wheel landing with a very smooth touchdown on the mains. I reduced power and moved the stick forward; keeping the tail up as long as possible. When the tail descended; the back of the plane slid to a stop on the remains of the spring tail landing gear.upon exiting the plane; I found that the tail wheel had broken at the aft end of the spring steel gear leg; and was hanging from the rudder cables. There was no other damage to the plane; not even the low antennas on either side of the landing gear. There is no substantial damage to the plane. There was a faint line on the runway surface from the sliding spring gear; but no damage to the airport. Contributing factors at [original airport] were gusting crosswind and unexpected wind shear.

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: RV6 pilot reported damaging the tail wheel during a hard landing.

Narrative: My wife and I were on a personal vacation trip. At our first fuel stop I attempted a landing. There were strong winds; a sizable crosswind component; and gusts. My first contact with the ground resulted in a light skip. The second contact was a bounce so; in keeping with my strict procedures; I added full power to go around. At that moment; we experienced wind shear that dropped the plane on the main wheels which bounced; causing the tail wheel to impact the runway. There was a bang at the tail followed by unusual movement of the rudder. A landing at that point was not possible; so I continued to climb out and retracted the flaps.I suspected the tail wheel was broken in some way. I decided the safest course of action was to land at a larger; controlled airport with emergency equipment. I turned to [nearby towered airport]; contacted the tower; explained the problem; and [requested priority handling]. I landed on Runway 26. I executed a wheel landing with a very smooth touchdown on the mains. I reduced power and moved the stick forward; keeping the tail up as long as possible. When the tail descended; the back of the plane slid to a stop on the remains of the spring tail landing gear.Upon exiting the plane; I found that the tail wheel had broken at the aft end of the spring steel gear leg; and was hanging from the rudder cables. There was no other damage to the plane; not even the low antennas on either side of the landing gear. There is no substantial damage to the plane. There was a faint line on the runway surface from the sliding spring gear; but no damage to the airport. Contributing factors at [original airport] were gusting crosswind and unexpected wind shear.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.