snip

Safety features sometimes spawn new hazards while eliminating old ones. The
automatic gear extension system is a good example. "At high density
altitudes," relates one owner, "the gear sometimes drops after it has been
retracted. This, of course, nullifies any climb!" Indeed, there have been
incidents in which the airplane might have been able to climb out safely had
the gear not dropped at the wrong moment, causing a stall/mush into the
terrain.

Then there are Arrow pilots who lose their engines and decide to ditch with
the gear up. Unfortunately, some forget to override the automatic extension
system. The gear plops out seconds before splash down-sending the Arrow head
over heels.

Such mishaps are rare-we only counted a few (none fatal) in our five-year
survey. But in mid-1987 Piper, then owned by Lear-Siegler, ordered the
system deactivated because of concern over liability suits. It sold kits to
do so, and told customers it wouldn't provide parts to repair the existing
system. Piper sold 1,400 kits.

One year later, Piper-then owned by M. Stuart Millar-withdrew its order to
deactivate the automatic extension system, provided that pilots "take the
necessary actions to assure that any pilot flying these aircraft are fully
advised of the system and its proper operation." In part, Piper was
responding to the complaints of irate owners who believed the system worked
often enough to be desirable.

snip

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Throttle coming back to a certain point actuates a microswitch and/or the
airspeed dropping to 95 knots drops the gear... There was an override, but
you had to remember to actuate it... Every Arrow that I was involved with
had the autoextension deactivated, period... Can't have the airplane killing
me, I can do a fine job of that all on my own...

denny