On 11/11/2010 2:11 PM, Colin Lamb wrote:
> A friend of mine has a retractable gear aircraft. It has a gear lever that
> goes forward and backward to make it go down and up. I got checked out in it
> a few years ago and the check pilot tried to trip me up and told me the gear
> was still up when I was on final. I blindly believed him and went to move
> the lever to the other position. Fortunately, he did not let me. But, I
> realized how vulnerable the pilot is in that aircraft.
I was going to say this had to be a home built aircraft as any retract
built in the last 50 years has to have both a gear warning horn
(activated by retarding the throttle with the gear up) and indicating
lights for both up and down gear positions.
> I suggested installing a microswitch and light on the dash - which he did
> last year. Except it was a Radio Shack led (not very bright).
Even many of the commercial ones are not very bright.
> A few months ago, he took another pilot up for a flight, was telling him of
> the virtues of his aircraft and saw what he thought was a lit led. Except it
> was lit by the sun hitting the side of it. As he was on final approach, the
> passenger kept telling him the gear was up, but the pilot was focused on
> landing and ignored that, landing gear up in front of a number of friends.
> Fortunately, about the only damage was the wooden prop.
That requires an engine teardown according to engine manufacturers,
although he may not have had a certified engine.
> This was at least the third time the aircraft has been landed wheels up,
> all three times with two otherwise competent pilots aboard. In one case, two
> high time instructors did it.
>
> I mention this because it is the same thing that contest operators do.
Not usually. In the aircraft it is *usually* conditioning. Be it from
memory or a check list, it's Gas (fullest main), Undercarriage (3 green
although on mine it's one green and pointer down), prop on final (prop
into fine pitch/high RPM) After doing this many, many times you see
what you *expect* to see. I had an instructor pull the breaker for the
gear on down wind. At the proper point I hit the gear down switch, added
flaps and then identified the gear down indication. As we were coming
"over the fence" I retarded the throttle (The Deb takes a fair amount of
power on final). At that point the gear warning horn went off. I looked
at the instructor and said, "You pulled the breaker didn't you?) and his
reply/ "And you identified the gear down THREE TIMES. Once each on down
wind, base, and final! I saw a green light and the nose gear pointer was
down. The only abnormal thing was the airplane was not slowing down like
I expected. When the gear goes down it's like hitting the brakes. This
is quite different than ignoring the warnings or being distracted. I
instruct all passengers when in the pattern, to look for other
airplanes, but other than pointing them out to me...KEEP QUIET!<:-))
> So, having things bullet proof automatic to override gross mental errors
> is good. Such things as grid trip and swr shutdown can save your amplifier.
>
> As for the aircraft, I got one of the high brightness leds to replace the
> puny one and there is no question now when the gear is down - or at least
> when the light is on.
>
My Glasair III will have 3 green for down and 3 red for up when it's
finished.
73
Roger (K8RI)
> 73, Colin K7FM
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