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Microburst + Cleaning up??

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kswhite

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
Posts
50
per the AIM it states that if a microburst is encountered you should (1) pitch for highest possible angle of attack, (2) apply full power, and (3) do not change aircraft configuration.

My question is why wouldn't you want to clean up the aircraft if you encountered this microburst while you were dirty (ie flaps and gear down). --- I could understand not wanting to reduce the flaps to zero for a reduction in lift but why not bring the gear up?

Sorry, I didn't have time to get the actual quote out of the AIM but it's in there somewhere.

Cheers
 
My question is why wouldn't you want to clean up the aircraft if you encountered this microburst while you were dirty (ie flaps and gear down). --- I could understand not wanting to reduce the flaps to zero for a reduction in lift but why not bring the gear up?

Granted, reducing the flaps to a lessor setting would probably increase performance, but in the heat of the moment you may grab the wrong handle or get too distracted from flying the airplane. Bringing the gear up also causes the gear doors to open and momentarily increasing drag..not a good thing when performance counts.
 
They're right, ks.

Having the gear down gives you protection in case of a high sink rate, possibly absorbing some of the force of an impact, or simply allowing for a hard landing as opposed to a belly-it-in landing.

Pitch and power are easy to remember, and quick to execute.
 
In the sim it really works, full flaps, gear down, and right into the shaker the airplane starts to recover and you climb out of the microburst.
 
During my last recurrent ride we were given severe windshear on the approach at about 2-300 feet. The Captain was flying and as we were trying to recover with pitch, power, and no configuration change (gear and flaps fully extended), we touched down, (the smoothest of the whole day) the Captain said "@#@# it" we're on the ground we're landing, and brought us to a stop. That IS why the gear is down.
The flap question is a harder one for me to understand too.
Take care.
 
I've also heard on some larger aircraft the drag created by gear doors in transit is much greater than when the gear is just extended.
 

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