TnG's in retractable gear aircraft

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Zeldman said:
I do three checks for gear down and locked, and only three: VFR abeam the numbers, hand comes off handle when gear down confirmed with 3 green and one in the mirror, Then after wings level on base, then again wings level on final. If the pattern entry is on the base leg, then 1 mile before joining the base leg gear comes down, joining base check #2, wings level on final check #3. Straight in gear down at 5 mile final, check at three mile final, then again short final. Anymore than 3 checks and sometimes other things might get over looked.

I see too many people that try the when it feels right method of letting the gear down tend to not check after the initial gear down check. With a friend of mine in his 210, I pulled the circuit breaker, and he put the handle down and never checked the light or did a visual check for the gear. I did bring it to his attention before crossing the threshold. We also found out that his gear not down warning horn was not working.....

Whatever works, stick with it.
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Maybe the horn was also wired to the gear breaker. Lol
 
In singles, I would cycle the gear each time around the pattern. I remember doing power off 180's ad nauseum for my CPL. Can't really leave the gear down and practice those the right way.

If it's just pattern work its also quicker to do a T&G then a stop and go or land and taxi back. And when you are paying by the Hobbs, I'd rather save myself some cash.

In a twin, no chance. Someone died here in FL doing a T&G in a light twin solo. Very bad idea.
 
My belief is that you practice what you plan on doing when things get very distracting and busy. That is when you make mistakes.

Also, by leaving the gear "down" after take off you will be developing bad habits and your chance,of forgetting to bring the gear "up" during normal operations will increase and will be embarrassing when you remember to do it.

Also,
If you believe that the more flight hour you have, the better pilot you will become (with in reason), it is only logical to do as many landings practicing to put the gear down in my opinion.


As far as technique:
Every time I put in a notch of Flaps, I check to make sure the gear "green" light is on. Thus 3 checks for 3 flap changes.

My last and final check is when I can actually read the numbers on final, I check to make sure there is a green light (number 4, in case I do a no flap landing)

At night, when I am on short final or on grass field landing on short final
where I normally could read the numbers I do a final check.
 
My only declared emergency was while doing TnG's at Denton in a Beech sierra. I was getting checked out in retract that was at the old school across from Marcair. We were in Denton's pattern doing TnG's retracting after each lift off. Eventually the gear would not lock into place. We left the pattern and tried to lower with the manual procedure with no luck. After 45 minutes of trying all the POH's emergency procedures, we finally got the mains locked into the down position but not the nose. We did a flyby and the tower confirmed the nose gear was down but the wheel was perpendicular to the fuselage. Tower diverted all aircraft and gave us the airport, had fire trucks and the works. We made the emergency landing without incident, killed the engine and rolled out, it wasn't 2 seconds and we were surrounded by emergency vehicles. Turned out the seals in the hydraulics gave way allowing fluid to equalize. They removed the plane out of the school after that incident. Moral of the story get checked out as quick as possible.LOL
 
Cpt_Kirk said:
In the 337, the book that I read said to leave it down the entire time because of the time/performance detriment of its operation.

The 210 has the same gear system. No idea on what that book says to do.
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My 210 book (unfortunately I only own the book!) says the same thing. When doing repeated pattern ops, leave the gear down and locked...
 
thomasdr72 said:
My 210 book (unfortunately I only own the book!) says the same thing. When doing repeated pattern ops, leave the gear down and locked...
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If the POH said to jump off a cliff, would you do it? :D:D

(Kidding, of course)
 
On every Go, I verify positive rate then Gear Up. Waiting for several thousand feet of runway to slide by in a low climb / high drag Configuration makes no sense--get those gear up and get some altitude!

Gear goes down, per my Owners Manual, abeam the intended point of landing. On an Instrument approach, dropping gear brings me down the glideslope, as long as I drop it when a dot-and-a-half high. (But that's hardly a Touch n Go . . . )

While rolling along the runway after landing, holding the throttle at Idle, I extend a single finger and push the Flap lever to Up, holding it until they stop moving. Then I quickly adjust trim and push the throttle forward. Typically by then I've slowed to about 50 mph, so rotation comes pretty quickly at 70 mph.

Whatever you do, figure out how to verify you're raising flaps before cranking the engine. I raise flaps as described above, while reaching to get the gear involves letting go of the throttle and reaching for the switch at the top of the panel, over a foot from the throttle (and it must be grasped, pulled then lifted).
 
thomasdr72 said:
My 210 book (unfortunately I only own the book!) says the same thing. When doing repeated pattern ops, leave the gear down and locked...
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As does the 172RG I believe and the Cardinal RG for sure. Honestly, if / when I was going to do multiple patterns I would leave them down. The less cycles on Cessna retractable gear the better in my book and if you can't differentiate between procedures you've got other problems or you just don't fly enough. My gear up was a fatigue failure of a hydraulic line in the nose in a Cardinal we had just acquired months before. Those hoses need to be replaced every so often and we found out one was old the hard way.
 
I'll take short hops to nearby fields in lieu of pattern work any day of the week in a retract. The Turbo Arrow I used to own had such an anemic rate of climb with the gear down, I'm not sure it would have been possible to reach pattern altitude in the circuit gear up.
 
The Navion has a gear horn. If you don't have three greens and you retard the throttle past a given point, it blows. Amusingly, the mechanic who restored my plane put the power for that horn on the STARTER circuit breaker. That way if it gets annoying you can pull it but you're unlikely to leave it that way. It originally was set for a much higher power setting that I typically fly on approach so it was annoying at times. I had it reset to just above where I usually draw it back in the roundout.

There's no "circuit breaker" for the gear itself. If you can move the handle, the gear should come out or it's broken. Emergency extension is a longer handle (I'm serious). Of course, there are some other interesting gear failure modes. There are about 13 steps in the gear problem checklist. However, NAA forgot one important step: once the gear is down and locked...stop screwing with it. Some of the subsequent steps will actually cause the gear to retract again if you have the right kind of failure.

I'm rather familiar with how all the lights and things are wired on my plane because I set out to figure out why my XM Radio audio only works with the gear down.
 
Zeldman said:
I see too many people that try the when it feels right method of letting the gear down tend to not check after the initial gear down check. With a friend of mine in his 210, I pulled the circuit breaker, and he put the handle down and never checked the light or did a visual check for the gear. I did bring it to his attention before crossing the threshold. We also found out that his gear not down warning horn was not working.....
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Good instruction. I see many pilots similarly focus on "it feels right" and think they'll never make a gear up. All it takes is a distraction or some abnormal condition and suddenly your "feel" gets off.
 
Hank S said:
On every Go, I verify positive rate then Gear Up. Waiting for several thousand feet of runway to slide by in a low climb / high drag Configuration makes no sense--get those gear up and get some altitude!

Gear goes down, per my Owners Manual, abeam the intended point of landing. On an Instrument approach, dropping gear brings me down the glideslope, as long as I drop it when a dot-and-a-half high. (But that's hardly a Touch n Go . . . )

While rolling along the runway after landing, holding the throttle at Idle, I extend a single finger and push the Flap lever to Up, holding it until they stop moving. Then I quickly adjust trim and push the throttle forward. Typically by then I've slowed to about 50 mph, so rotation comes pretty quickly at 70 mph.

Whatever you do, figure out how to verify you're raising flaps before cranking the engine. I raise flaps as described above, while reaching to get the gear involves letting go of the throttle and reaching for the switch at the top of the panel, over a foot from the throttle (and it must be grasped, pulled then lifted).
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Try that in a Cessna light single retract, and you'll plant the prop in the runway. At least 100 AGL in addition to positive rate. Gear cycle is much higher drag than gear up or gear down, and takes 12 seconds.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Good instruction. I see many pilots similarly focus on "it feels right" and think they'll never make a gear up. All it takes is a distraction or some abnormal condition and suddenly your "feel" gets off.
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Yup. The pilot of our Bonanza that suffered a wheels up last year attributes a distraction as part of the event chain that cause the incident.

And this happened during a lap in the pattern, and was what I was thinking of when I created the original post.

Image: https://goo.gl/photos/5xr9popM7Ueh86JFA
 
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Ted DuPuis said:
Good instruction. I see many pilots similarly focus on "it feels right" and think they'll never make a gear up. All it takes is a distraction or some abnormal condition and suddenly your "feel" gets off.
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The Houston DC-9 crash I mentioned earlier got the "Feels right" argument blown off. They forgot to turn up the hydraulics. Lousy cockpit discipline. They moved the handle down but the gear didn't come out and they didn't notice. The FO who was the flying pilot said that there was something wrong, the plane was too fast. The captain's response was pretty much "I got it."

0900:46 CAM [sound similar to landing gear warning horn starts and continues]
0900:50 CAM-2 (flaps forty).
0900:53 CAM [momentary interruption of sound similar to landing gear warning horn]
0900:56 CAM-2 (here comes) fifty.
0900:58 CAM-1 fifty flaps.
0901:00 CAM-2 * I don't have any flaps.
0901:01 CAM-1 ****.
0901:02 CAM-2 want to take it around?
0901:03 CAM-1 no, that's alright. * keep your speed up here about uh,
0901:07 CAM [sound similar to landing gear warning horn stops]
0901:08 CAM-2 I can't slow it down here now.
0901:10 CAM-1 you're alright.
0901:10 CAM-2 .. we're just smokin’ in here.
0901:13 CAM-4 whoop whoop pull up, whoop whoop pull up, whoop whoop pull up.
0901:15 CAM [sound similar to landing gear warning horn starts and continues to after impact]
0901:18 CAM-2 want to land it?
0901:19 CAM-1 yeah.
0901:20 CAM-2 your airplane. captain's airplane.
0901:24 CAM-2 you want it?
0901:25 CAM-1 yeah.
0901:32 CAM [sound of impact, loud rattling, rumbling starts and continues]
 
mscard88 said:
How I was taught, teach, and do it. On the go no usable runway remaining gear up.

When I was an Air Force controller that's how the Air Force birds did it too, but if we had a Navy bird in the pattern they left their gear down.

I guess either method is fine as long as the gear is down when you arrive.
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Were they going downwind, or back to initial. Seems to me I remember the Air Force would typically go back to the initial for another break while the Navy would typically just go downwind.
 
No interlock on that one. It's a M20C. Johsnon Bar. Appears this particular airframe had a couple of gear up. Being in NZ, I can't find too much about the one in the video.
 
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luvflyin said:
Were they going downwind, or back to initial. Seems to me I remember the Air Force would typically go back to the initial for another break while the Navy would typically just go downwind.
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Never seen an AF fighter leave the gear down. Then again, don't recall seeing them do T&Gs either. They always did LAs followed by the typical gear up at the approach end, build speed, rapid pitch up at midfield, gear down on downwind, rapid slip to final. Navy / Marine, slam it down, depart with gear down and drag it while in the pattern. Generally FCLP stuff. If they did tuck it up, it was either to go back to initial or back to radar.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Zeldman said:
With a friend of mine in his 210, I pulled the circuit breaker, and he put the handle down and never checked the light or did a visual check for the gear. I did bring it to his attention before crossing the threshold. We also found out that his gear not down warning horn was not working.....
Click to expand...
Good instruction. I see many pilots similarly focus on "it feels right" and think they'll never make a gear up. All it takes is a distraction or some abnormal condition and suddenly your "feel" gets off.
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Horrible instruction. And I also noticed that you're a moderator, you "liked" his instruction, and the two posts that told Zeldman that was UNSAT what he did disappeared.

I'll say it again. Don't F with my airplane when I'm flying, and don't pull CBs on safety equipment. What happens if, after Zeldman starts his great "instructional technique", he then gets distracted. Now what? Now there's a gear up because he decided to disable the one last-ditch safety device to prevent it.

And if you did delete the two posts that disagreed with your stance on his "instruction," stop it. It makes you look petty.
 
If the right seater was giving instruction I don't see an issue. If they were not, that's another matter.


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gsengle said:
In my airplane a T&G is a problem because of the big trim change from landing to takeoff configuration... probably takes 15-20 seconds. Won't ever do a T&G, only a stop and go on a long runway.


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Yikes! What are you flying?

I've had no problem doing touch and goes in anything from a little 7AC to C208Bs and PC12s, yeah it takes a little force till you re trim, but it's no where near bad enough that you can't do a touch and go, or more importantly a go around.

Speaking of which, what happens if you're about to touch down and a coyote or deer runs onto the runway? If the trim forces are so much that you cant handle it physically, I'd talk to your mechanic and/or a personal trainer and nutritionist.
 
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I had an instructor with a student who was flying an approach with the gear horn blaring. He sarcastically pointed out to her that if she advanced the throttle a bit the noise would stop. She did still not realizing she was about to land gear up.
 
In the Navion, if you have the approach trimmed right, you'll find that you have the takeoff trim right as well. The touchdown and rotation airspeeds are pretty much the same. Same holds true for the older 182's I've flown.
 
In our Cardinal RG I never do touch 'n gos. The closest I'll come would be a stop and go at an non-part121 airport with big runway and a tower (KHYI for me). Even that is rare. I pay by tach time, so that makes the taxi-back a little less painful, and gives me time to mentally review the landing and think about how to make a better landing next time.

I've been doing some training with American Flyers at Addison (KADS), they have what I think is the worst of all possible worlds for RG training. They put the gear down approaching the airport, the CFI keeps his hand on the gear lever at all times, and you do stop and gos, leaving the gear down until you're ready to go somewhere else.

For one thing, that makes it easy to forget to raise the gear (DAMHIK), and another doesn't create a good habit pattern.

I can see why Flyers does it this way, least their Gutlesses wear out the gear, what with those airplanes flying pretty much all day long, seven days a week.

But I don't have to like it.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Horrible instruction. And I also noticed that you're a moderator, you "liked" his instruction, and the two posts that told Zeldman that was UNSAT what he did disappeared.

I'll say it again. Don't F with my airplane when I'm flying, and don't pull CBs on safety equipment. What happens if, after Zeldman starts his great "instructional technique", he then gets distracted. Now what? Now there's a gear up because he decided to disable the one last-ditch safety device to prevent it.

And if you did delete the two posts that disagreed with your stance on his "instruction," stop it. It makes you look petty.
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Posts are not deleted because the MC disagrees with the content. Posts ARE deleted because they are in violation of the RoC or quote posts that are in violation of the RoC.

One of the biggest parts of instruction is giving students (whether they're student pilots, pilots receiving a flight review, or pilots you're working with on transition) realistic failures. That is a realistic failure. Something goes wrong and the gear doesn't come down when you command it to. It's common for me to pull breakers on students and let them discover the failure and then figure out what happened and how to deal with it. Yes, the instructor could get distracted, and that's a risk. But good instruction requires that you create controlled failures and it's the instructor's job to know what happened and have the "out" planned. I fail engines on students, too. Quite a lot, as any of my students can attest to.

The assumption with that is that there is an understanding of instruction going on. I'm not going to instruct someone or induce failures unless it is established at some prior point that I am providing instruction and may induce failures. Usually it's part of the pre takeoff briefing. Zeldman indicated it was a friend, and he seems he correctly judged how his friend would feel about a failure.
 
kayoh190 said:
Downwind abeam is where I lower the gear if in the pattern.
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"Downwind abeam" does not define a position anymore than "on Main Street across from" does. You need a point of reference. "Abeam midfield, the numbers, the tower, etc.

P/CG: ABEAM− An aircraft is “abeam” a fix, point, or object when that fix, point, or object is approximately 90 degrees to the right or left of the aircraft track. Abeam indicate​


flyingron said:
it's more obvious in the Navion than in the DC-9 where Continental managed to have a belly landing because they forgot to turn up the hydraulic power.
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Well, it's pretty obvious in the DC9 as demonstrated in the transcript excerpt you posted. Couldn't slow, gear horn, and GPWS alerts. First clue, even before all of that, should have been the slow/incomplete flap/slat extension. Not only does if feel different but it sounds different.

Normal procedure is to have the engine-driven hydraulic pumps on "Low", about 1300psi, for most of the flight and "High", about 3000psi, for departure and arrival. A priority valve closes at the slower pressure removing pressure from the parts of the system that are not needed in cruise.
 
Larry in TN said:
"Downwind abeam" does not define a position anymore than "on Main Street across from" does. You need a point of reference. "Abeam midfield, the numbers, the tower, etc.
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I'm sorry sir, I'll hand in my pilot's license. Maybe buy you a beer, but I'll have to stop and get some cash from an ATM machine.
 
Sluggo63 said:
And if you did delete the two posts that disagreed with your stance on his "instruction," stop it. It makes you look petty.
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Your post was deleted because it quoted a post that was removed for being in violation of the rules of conduct. Your post would have been deleted even if you had taken the opposite position.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
One of the biggest parts of instruction is giving students (whether they're student pilots, pilots receiving a flight review, or pilots you're working with on transition) realistic failures
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One should avoid mixing the moderation role with espousing your personal opinion on the subject, particularly in the same post. It does VERY MUCH give the illusion mentioned.

There is no indication that this was flight instruction nor even that Zeldman is an instructor. It appears to be nothing more than a prank, and an extremely dangerous one at that.
 
luvflyin said:
Were they going downwind, or back to initial. Seems to me I remember the Air Force would typically go back to the initial for another break while the Navy would typically just go downwind.
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Both for the AF. AF always sucked the wheels up.
 
flyingron said:
One should avoid mixing the moderation role with espousing your personal opinion on the subject, particularly in the same post. It does VERY MUCH give the illusion mentioned.

There is no indication that this was flight instruction nor even that Zeldman is an instructor. It appears to be nothing more than a prank, and an extremely dangerous one at that.
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Yep. Obviously I didn't do this nice of a job trying get to make the same point.

I would consider a pax pulling breakers to be an attack on my person and finances, and putting said person out immediately a safety measure to protect them from bodily harm. After all, if I beat said person senseless then methodically broke all of their fingers, they would never pull anyone's breakers again, a good outcome. Putting them out of the plane, however, would protect me from assault and battery charges.

Who here is an instructor? I have no idea. I do know when I put an instructor in my right seat, and when that instructor is teaching vs. going to ride. What's his name pulling gear breakers gave no hint of CFI-ing, and even my background being raised by a career, active duty Marine did not equip me with the vocabulary to adequately describe such lowlife behaviour nor the type of individual who would do such "just because."

Is that too harsh? Not to me, when you're putting my body, my plane and my bank account on the line for your own personal pleasure, which is how the incident was described. Snowflakes need other go to ride with me . . . .
 
Hank S said:
if I beat said person senseless then methodically broke all of their fingers, they would never pull anyone's breakers again, a good outcome.
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Hank, why don't you lay down on the couch and tell me a little bit about how you feel?
 
Cooter said:
Hank, why don't you lay down on the couch and tell me a little bit about how you feel?
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I don't live in Texas, so the "he needed killing" defense may not work . . . But if you pull my breaker and I gear up, I may have to find out . . . :stirpot: :biggrin: I remind myself from time to time that I'm just one stupid mistake away from the end of my flying career, as an engine overhaul, new prop, antennas, belly panel and flap hinge repair aren't in the budget . . .
 
Hank S said:
I remind myself from time to time that I'm just one stupid mistake away from the end of my flying career
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That's a scary thought but very true. I actually make myself not think about that.

Slightly different topic but I've always wondered why sometimes you do that one stupid thing that you've never done before. Flying off the carrier, there would be experienced guys that went to idle in the wires (big no-no) when they had done it right hundreds of times before. They have no excuse, they just do it even though they had no intention of doing it. Habit patterns and consistency help, but sometimes you just do that one stupid thing.
 
Cooter said:
That's a scary thought but very true. I actually make myself not think about that.

Slightly different topic but I've always wondered why sometimes you do that one stupid thing that you've never done before. Flying off the carrier, there would be experienced guys that went to idle in the wires (big no-no) when they had done it right hundreds of times before. They have no excuse, they just do it even though they had no intention of doing it. Habit patterns and consistency help, but sometimes you just do that one stupid thing.
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That's called "being human." Unfortunately, there's no cure. You just have to be vigilant.

So I check gear down three times: on downwind when I drop them, I listen and wait for the Thump as they lock down, then check the green light; on base, I feel the switch and check the green light; on short final, I look at the switch and light then point at the mechanical indicator on the floor. This last is foolproof, it's a green stripe with "SAFE" in white letters, painted on the crossbar that connects the two main gear.
 
Hank S said:
Yep. Obviously I didn't do this nice of a job trying get to make the same point.

I would consider a pax pulling breakers to be an attack on my person and finances, and putting said person out immediately a safety measure to protect them from bodily harm. After all, if I beat said person senseless then methodically broke all of their fingers, they would never pull anyone's breakers again, a good outcome. Putting them out of the plane, however, would protect me from assault and battery charges.

Who here is an instructor? I have no idea. I do know when I put an instructor in my right seat, and when that instructor is teaching vs. going to ride. What's his name pulling gear breakers gave no hint of CFI-ing, and even my background being raised by a career, active duty Marine did not equip me with the vocabulary to adequately describe such lowlife behaviour nor the type of individual who would do such "just because."

Is that too harsh? Not to me, when you're putting my body, my plane and my bank account on the line for your own personal pleasure, which is how the incident was described. Snowflakes need other go to ride with me . . . .
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That may not be too harsh for you, but the MC does not welcome posts about beating people senseless or breaking their fingers. We realize that many enjoy their internet tough guy personas but when people cross over into making personal attacks we will be giving warnings and deleting posts, including posts that quote the original remark.
 
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