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Landing with a gear problem.

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Hugh Johnson

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 28, 2004
Posts
684
This came up in a BS session before a flight. If you have one main and the nose locked, do you land like that or do you pull all the gears up and belly it in? My training has been land on the good main and nose, keep the opposite wing off as long as possible, maintain certerline with rudder and tiller. Had about a 50/50 split, with the guys who wanted to pull gear up and belly in. Cheers.
 
The possibilities.....

Hugh Johnson said:
If you have one main and the nose locked, do you land like that or do you pull all the gears up and belly it in? My training has been land on the good main and nose, keep the opposite wing off as long as possible, maintain certerline with rudder and tiller.

The question is to broad. To many variables that are unknown. Skill level and time of the pilot, type of aircraft, wing and engine location, number of engines, pistion or jet, condition of runway, i.e soft, short, paved. Wind and weather conditions, etc.

However I think if I were to land with the gear down, I would land off centerline to the side that had the main wheel down. Less chance of going off the runway.
 
ePilot22 said:
The question is to broad. To many variables that are unknown. Skill level and time of the pilot, type of aircraft, wing and engine location, number of engines, pistion or jet, condition of runway, i.e soft, short, paved. Wind and weather conditions, etc.

Doesn't matter. Belly in. On the grass if you can. Pull the mixtures on short final as soon as you are sure you have the runway made and are not going to overshoot. Bump the props parallel to the runway, switches and fuel off, and slide it on. Little or no damage to the belly.

Try it with one or two down, and yeah, maybe all those variables come into play, but still the damage is worse over-all regardless of skill and conditions.
 
nosehair said:


Doesn't matter. Belly in. On the grass if you can. Pull the mixtures on short final as soon as you are sure you have the runway made and are not going to overshoot. Bump the props parallel to the runway, switches and fuel off, and slide it on. Little or no damage to the belly.

Try it with one or two down, and yeah, maybe all those variables come into play, but still the damage is worse over-all regardless of skill and conditions.


I love these remarks, going to have to pull up a lawnchair and watch the fun you all will have with this. I seem to recall a few threads on this exact topic. My penny worth of knowledge, why create a bigger emergency by comitting yourself with absolutely no options, plus the ammount of time it takes to bump the props to horizontal could require pulling the mixtures at TPA. Silly Silly. Would you tell a brand new student with 50 hours to do this? My penny worth of thought on it.

-Brian
 
I guess you might want to start with using the checklist. The plane will be damaged no matter how you do it, which means you will want the insurance company to cover it. I'll bet the insurance company will try not to pay if you do something other than what the checklist says. Most checklists that I have seen say to leave the gear as is, land on a hard surface runway, towards the side of the extended gear and hold the wing off as long as possible. Metal slides well on a hard surface and will dissipate the energy slower. I can't say I've seen a perfectly smooth grass strip, and it would be real easy for a wingtip to catch a divit or rut and spin the airplane around far worse than on pavement. Besides, not too many grassy areas have crash and fire rescue to stand by.
 

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