Comanche accident averted last evening

More than true..

I had a friend who, several years ago, landed his 185 with
the Amphib wheels down..

An instant "face plant" that he barley escaped from with his
life (both doors jambed)

A detail missed on a combination land/water circuit that,
fortunately only cost him the aircraft...

Dave


On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 22:43:08 -0500, "Highflyer" wrote:


"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Highflyer wrote:

No. You can if you want to though! :-) I used to fly a Seabee. You
want the gear UP for a water landing and the gear DOWN for a runway
landing. I used to announce "This is a WATER landing. The landing gear
is UP" and then look out my window at the gear and look at it and then
say "My landing gear is UP." For a land landing I would make suitable
adjustments. Sometimes passengers looked at me funny, but I never landed
with the gear in the wrong position! :-)
In the seabee it's a bigger deal to land gear down in the water than
gear up on the land. Just a little scraping and difficulty with taxi.



That is very true. Any amphibian, even amphibious floats, when landed on
water with the wheels down will generally make for a real "slam dunk" and
the airplane will do its best to emulate a submarine.

Any amphibian, landing on land with the wheels up, will generally scrape a
bit off the keels and scratch a little paint if you land on pavement and
likely won't do a thing if you land on grass.

We used to land airplanes on straight floats on the grass every fall to
change them over to wheels or skis for the winter. In the spring we would
put the floats back on and take off either with a dolly that stayed on the
runway, or off of wet grass!

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )