Backup for dropping the gear

If by "normal" you mean "does everyone else do it this way", then no it's
not normal. Piper arrows have an override which releases hydraulic pressure
so that the gear can free fall into position. Older moonies have a "johnson
bar" which is a purely manual system. Yet other planes have an emergency
tank for blowing the gear down (beech maybe?).

For the 182RG, I believe the hydraulic system provides for "up pressure"
meaning that if you spring a leak the gear should drop. So if only the pump
fails, out comes the handle, otherwise the gear are coming down anyway. And
now for the bad news: because the main gear fold backward into the fuselage,
they likely won't drop all the way on a hydraulic failure. There are
various anecdotes about pilots reaching out the door with the towbar to pull
the gear all the way down.

Folding legs on the high-wing Cessnas have always been a bit of a black eye,
usually due to maintenance issues.

cheers,
mark

"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
online.com...
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I've been reading the POH for my club's 182RG, and I find myself
surprised.
The manual gear extension replies upon the same hydrolic pressure system
as
the powered mechanism.

Isn't that insufficiently redundant?

I'm not sure what I expected - perhaps something purely mechanical. But I
didn't expect a lone pressure system to be a single point of failure.

Is this normal?

- Andrew

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Mark Astley wrote:
Yet other planes have an emergency
tank for blowing the gear down (beech maybe?).

Bonanza's: 50 turns of the little crank, located behind the little door
on the back of the main spar below the copilot's seat. The crank is
attached to a gear that meshes with another gear on the shaft attached
to the gear motor and landing gear.

"Mark Astley" wrote in message ...
snip
There are
various anecdotes about pilots reaching out the door with the towbar to pull
the gear all the way down.


I read one in a flying mag several years ago. Under the direction
of a ground based A&P, the passnger accessed the empty hydraulic
reservoir from inside the cabin and replenished it with a biologically
manufactured fluid. It was enough to get the gear locked and they
landed safely.

I'll bet the A&P that had to work on that system was ****ed :-)

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)