Which one of you forgot to put the gear down?

In fairness, the Cessna platform is one where the gear *can* occasionally fail through no fault of the pilot.
 
I have had more gear problems with Piper than Cessna.

And ''0'' gear up landings in either.
 
Zeldman said:
I have had more gear problems with Piper than Cessna.

And ''0'' gear up landings in either.
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Piper retractable gear will also drain the oil from your engine, but that's a conversation for another thread.
 
Oh that sucks. I was hoping it was going to be a Spirit flight. Caused by none of the passengers buying the optional "land with gear down" add-on.
 
None, had a main tire blow on landing once. But then again my planes have fixed gear. One thing less to worry about.
 
The article implies he had a known gear issue going into land. With that it sounds like an intentional gear up landing.
 
Recently flew with a T210 owner who told me his partner had the experienced a Hydraulic fluid leak and lost enough fluid that the gear would not extend. Had his passenger dump the coffee from his thermos into the Hydraulic fluid reservoir and was able to successfully extend the gear. Have to admit I might not thought of trying that.

Brian
 
brcase said:
Recently flew with a T210 owner who told me his partner had the experienced a Hydraulic fluid leak and lost enough fluid that the gear would not extend. Had his passenger dump the coffee from his thermos into the Hydraulic fluid reservoir and was able to successfully extend the gear. Have to admit I might not thought of trying that.

Brian
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Now that is some stout coffee!
 
The Cessna system relies on the integrity of the seals in the actuators and control valve. If these are ignored, they age and can fail, and the hydraulic pressure just bypasses instead of getting the gear down against the airflow. The hand pump will do nothing in this case. The 210/coffee incident mentioned probably lost fluid through a failed actuator pushrod seal. Again, age.

In models up to about 1980, Cessna wanted those seals replaced every five years. Later models used a different seal polymer that lasted longer, so on-condition became the norm. I suppose the idea was that if small leaks or sluggish gear operation or the powerpack's repeated cycling every few minutes were noted, it was time to rebuild the system. But how many pilots or owners are oblivious to small signals like that? It's common, in my experience. So gear-up incidents wreck the airplane/engine/prop, costing far more than system overhaul.

We had the R182 gear fail on the jacks in the hangar. One of the tiny O-rings in the gear valve had split, and let the fluid bypass so no pressure could be generated.
 
Dan Thomas said:
The 5606 blend. Might be a market for that in airport restaurants. Some pilots will buy anything airplane-related.
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Seeing that Aircraft Spruce now sells coffee, I completely agree with your statement.
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