Sir! Yes, I Lowered the Landing Gear, Sir!

It seems a bit hard to believe the pilot would forget the landing gear since most military controllers add "...check gear down" on clearances.
The question that comes to mind: Do these come equipped with black boxes similar to airliners?
14mil on a 285Mil aircraft. Not a bad %. At least they didn't total it!
 
not only do controllers call "check gear down", back in the old days the Navy used to post a "gear watch" on the approach end of the runway, who was responsible to verify gear down on all aircraft on short final.
 
Obviously needed the guy with the flare gun like in "The Battle of Britain". Spit does a quick go around.
 
Ouch, very expensive screw up. I would not have wanted to explain that one. Zianet.com is one of our local internet providers and Ted Morris(whose site this is) is the x airport manager of the Las Cruces airport. Quite a colorful guy, full of stories of his days at Diego Garcia. He just came back from a couple of years in the middle east working as an air traffic controller for the US govt. or something like that.
 
Jeez, I doubt he'd be flying the B-1 in the foreseeable future.
 
Rode jump seat on a 767 military charter into Diego. Capt contacted the tower about 100 miles out. I think were still above 30k. Tower cleared us to land, descend our discretion including down on the deck if we wanted. Of course it was about 0500 local, not much traffic. If you miss that runway in any direction you will get wet. Neat place to visit but I don't think I would want to live there.
Ron
 
A number of us got diverted to Diego Garcia one "dark and stormy night" when we couldn't get back aboard the boat. Closed down the club and decided that the swimming pool looked just too inviting to pass up, since we had been at sea way too long. An eight foot fence is just a minor inconvenience to a group of determined Naval Aviators and we all went swimming, until the MPs showed up and informed us that swim call was revoked, escorted us to quarters and invited the senior officer present to early breakfast with the base CO. We were given a cheery-o sendoff and disinvited to "ever set foot on my base again".

Nice swimming pool, tho!
 
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