Gear Warning

W.J. (Bill) Dean (U.K.). wrote:

I understand that frequently if someone lands wheel up, when asked if they
did pre-landing checks they say "oh, yes!". The point of course is that
those who are taught pre-landing checks are flying training gliders with a
fixed wheel, and so they are used to saying the check item but doing
nothing.

Perhaps, if they had a gear up warning system, it would have alerted
them to the put the gear down, and avoided the gear up landing. I find
having the buzzer screech at me is a good training aid, and I redouble
my efforts to avoid it in the future.

The people I know that have landed gear up had 100's (or more) of hours
in the glider they landed gear up, so it seems they were used to "doing
something". The gear up landings I'm familiar with almost always
involved some distraction so that the checks were not done, or the pilot
grabbed the wrong handle, or the gear was down for the whole flight and
raised for landing. Also, the pre-landing checks I was taught did not
involve the gear, flaps, or ballast, as the ASK 13 had none of these,
and I suspect many (most?) US pilots were trained that way. All this
leads me to believe the situation you suggest is a rare one.

Personally, the 3 times my gear up warning saved me, I had 200, 1000,
and 1500 hours in various retractable gear gliders. All involved
distraction.


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Eric Greenwell
Washington State
USA