JetPilot500-
Sorry I missunderstood your post. Yes the gravity freefall system on Pipers was one of my favorites too. I had to pump the gear down on the 172RG on a couple of occasions and found it rather cumbersome and difficult to operate... especially single pilot.
On the other hand, I had a gear pump failure in an Arrow in solid IMC. Very easy to just depress the hydraulic pressure release lever and let the gear gravity fall on its own.
I once heard of a pilot flying a C182RG wich has a similar gear system to that of the 172RG. The limit switch on the gear pump failed after he retracted the gear on T/O and the pump never shut off... just kept pumping pressure into the gear system. Eventually a hydraulic line broke and all pressure was lost. Without hydraulic pressure, the gear was just dangling back and the pilot was unable to manually hand pump the gear into the down and locked position and had to make a costly gear up landing. If this happened in an Arrow, or other Piper retract, the gear would just automatically free fall into the down and locked position, and the pilot could have made an uneventfull landing.
Unfortunately, the pilot of the C182RG could have stopped the situation once it had started. Not only can you hear the gear pump operating, but you can see it drawing a large electrical load. If you see and hear that the pump has not shut off in the normal amount of time, you should recognize the problem and pull the circuit breaker for the gear pump to shut it off and prevent the failure. As they say, hind sight is always 20/20. But I did make it a point to check the electrical load after takeoff after I heard this story... just to be sure.
