Landing Gear, Piper Lance

tonycondon

tonycondon

Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
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Tony
Went up in the Lance today for shakedown flight before Tuesdays trip to KC. Landing gear wouldnt come up. First attempt at retraction caused green lights to go out, red gear unsafe light came on but never went out. put gear back down, got green lights,no red. any further attempt at retraction caused no change, three green the whole time. better down than up, i say. Im thinking something is probalby frozen, temp was about 5 degF. Will get it in the shop monday for the inevitable jacking and successful retraction and extension with no problems found. any other ideas of problem?
 
*Note to self: Don't fly with Tony in retractable gear airplane.* ;)

I know nothing about Piper gear operation - does it use hydraulic (or similar) fluid to actuate the gear? If so, it's possible the fluid was stiff due to cold and the pump was going straight to bypass. OR... If water got into the fluid somehow, it could have frozen the lines downstream. Hydraulic fluid - unless it is super light-weight - can get as thick as molasses as cold as it's been here lately. Has the guy (or anyone else) flown the plane since we've had this cold snap?
 
CJones said:
*Note to self: Don't fly with Tony in retractable gear airplane.* ;)
Click to expand...

thats kinda what i was thinking...

CJones said:
I know nothing about Piper gear operation - does it use hydraulic (or similar) fluid to actuate the gear? If so, it's possible the fluid was stiff due to cold and the pump was going straight to bypass. OR... If water got into the fluid somehow, it could have frozen the lines downstream. Hydraulic fluid - unless it is super light-weight - can get as thick as molasses as cold as it's been here lately. Has the guy (or anyone else) flown the plane since we've had this cold snap?
Click to expand...

this is first flight since cold snap. gear is retracted with a hydraulic ram. what you are saying makes sense. im sure as soon as they get it in the shop itll warm up and retract fine.
 
Someone once told me that if the gear doesn't come up the first time, and you cycle it down and it shows green, that you really need an exceptionally good reason to try retracting it again (say, the carrier you just launched from was sunk and you can't make it to land with the gear down) until you know why it didn't lock up the first time.

Best example of that was when someone in my A-6 squadron put the gear up on takeoff and didn't get an uplock light. He put it down, got three green, and tried putting it up again. Unfortunately, one of the main gear doors had gotten out of sequence (the reason there was no uplock light), and while the gear went down OK (door position isn't a factor in gear down indications -- if the gear is down, it's down), when he put it up the second time, the door got mashed between the main gear and the fuselage -- now he couldn't get a down-and-locked. After about an hour of effort and emergency gear extension methds, they finally got three green, but the airplane was a lot more damaged than it had been the first time he put the gear down.
 
Have never heard of 5606 freezing Tony. Hang on to your wallet, could be a whole bunch of things but high on the list would be pump brushes worn out or the hydraulic bypass valve seal is worn. The bushes can be replaced but if the pump is high time better to replace. The valve seal can be replaced but I didn't have any luck replacing mine. If you have to replace either unit it's about $800 to $1000 plus labor. Hope it's something simple.
Ron
 
L10MAN said:
Have never heard of 5606 freezing Tony. Hang on to your wallet, could be a whole bunch of things but high on the list would be pump brushes worn out or the hydraulic bypass valve seal is worn. The bushes can be replaced but if the pump is high time better to replace. The valve seal can be replaced but I didn't have any luck replacing mine. If you have to replace either unit it's about $800 to $1000 plus labor. Hope it's something simple.
Ron
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not my plane, so not my wallet. i guess we'll find out on monday.
 
I like Ron's advice. If you hit your head on a wall, and it hurts, you could hit your head again to double-check, or stop and assume it will hurt you again.

Other than that, how did you like the Lance? T-tail or straight?
 
straight tail. I like it. this one has all the lopresti speed mods and scoots. we were truing out over 150 knots on a freezing cold day to kansas city. nice people hauler. the one i fly has decent IFR panel. king flip flops, GS etc. STEC autopilot that works very well is nice too.
 
I had a problem similar to this on a KingAir not long ago.
It turned out to be the up limiting switch had broken (plastic, from age).

It's now a month later.... What was the result, Tony?
 
it was a diaphragm issue. Overriding the auto extend fixed it.
 
Hi Tony,
Possible issue-
I fly a club 79 Turbo Arrow and we have had some problems with the manual gear override switch setting.
When you took off, was the override engaged?
If not, the the automatic gear extender might be sensing the slow speed (I think it is supposed to be set to 85-90K) and the extender will keep dropping the gear because you were probably climbing around Vy (79k) which is below the set extension speed.

Eric
________
The yazidi branch of yazdanism forums
 
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that could be Eric. i dont think the override was actually extending the gear, I think it was because the overrides diaphragms were worn out (probably from too much sitting) and they were releasing the pressure in the system. By disengaging the override it removed those diaphragms from the system and then the pressure would hold and gear would retract.
 
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