Winter flying with retractable gear?

Paul,
Tapping brakes stops the rotation before entering the wheel well. You do
not want them spinning into the gear well.
Leaving them down blows off excess slush and snow as well as freezes any
thin residue that may be left. having it freeze in the wheel well can
make it stick into the well.
Michelle

Paul Tomblin wrote:

This will be my first winter flying the club's Lance. One instructor told
me that you want to tap the brakes before retracting the gear to dislodge
any slush or snow so that it doesn't freeze in the wheel well, and I read
somebody else saying that you should hold off retracting the gear after
take-off for a little while to blow the slush and snow off. Should I do
one or the other or both?




--

Michelle P ATP-ASEL, CP-AMEL, and AMT-A&P

"Elisabeth" a Maule M-7-235B (no two are alike)

Volunteer Pilot, Angel Flight Mid-Atlantic

Volunteer Builder, Habitat for Humanity

Paul,

Tapping the brakes prior to retraction is one of aviation's old wives
tales that just hangs in there. The gear wells are large enough to
hold the tires even if they have some bulge from spinning (which isn't
much anyway on our slow little bugsmashers). There are some
transports in which the manual calls for tapping the brakes and some
in which it specifically says not to as the sudden stop on large tires
and wheels can cause the tire to slide on the rim.

Check the manual for your airplane for winter operations. Some
suggest to delay gear retraction for a bit to help blow off
snow/slush/water. The inertia from the spinning tire usually tosses
off most of the contamination (allowing it to freeze to the underside
of the wing g) and waiting a bit to suck the gear up allows the
airflow to take it off the brake discs and other, stationary, portions
of the gear. Having the gear freeze up is pretty rare. More common
will be that you'll taxi through some snow that gets on the brakes, it
melts on the discs and then freezes one or both of the brakes after
takeoff. Just land on centerline to give yourself room for a swerve
as it takes a moment or two of sliding tire(s) before the brake
unfreezes and you have rolling control. Naturally, it occurs when you
make one of those lucky, smooth touchdowns and you hear the squeal of
a tire sliding, then the pop as the ice lets go and things go back to
normal. Not usually a big deal, but folks have gone into the
snowbanks adjacent to the runway due to not reacting quickly enough.

All the best,
Rick

(Paul Tomblin) wrote in message ...
This will be my first winter flying the club's Lance. One instructor told
me that you want to tap the brakes before retracting the gear to dislodge
any slush or snow so that it doesn't freeze in the wheel well, and I read
somebody else saying that you should hold off retracting the gear after
take-off for a little while to blow the slush and snow off. Should I do
one or the other or both?

Paul,

Tapping the brakes prior to retraction is one of aviation's old wives
tales that just hangs in there. The gear wells are large enough to
hold the tires even if they have some bulge from spinning (which isn't
much anyway on our slow little bugsmashers). There are some
transports in which the manual calls for tapping the brakes and some
in which it specifically says not to as the sudden stop on large tires
and wheels can cause the tire to slide on the rim.

Check the manual for your airplane for winter operations. Some
suggest to delay gear retraction for a bit to help blow off
snow/slush/water. The inertia from the spinning tire usually tosses
off most of the contamination (allowing it to freeze to the underside
of the wing g) and waiting a bit to suck the gear up allows the
airflow to take it off the brake discs and other, stationary, portions
of the gear. Having the gear freeze up is pretty rare. More common
will be that you'll taxi through some snow that gets on the brakes, it
melts on the discs and then freezes one or both of the brakes after
takeoff. Just land on centerline to give yourself room for a swerve
as it takes a moment or two of sliding tire(s) before the brake
unfreezes and you have rolling control. Naturally, it occurs when you
make one of those lucky, smooth touchdowns and you hear the squeal of
a tire sliding, then the pop as the ice lets go and things go back to
normal. Not usually a big deal, but folks have gone into the
snowbanks adjacent to the runway due to not reacting quickly enough.

All the best,
Rick

(Paul Tomblin) wrote in message ...
This will be my first winter flying the club's Lance. One instructor told
me that you want to tap the brakes before retracting the gear to dislodge
any slush or snow so that it doesn't freeze in the wheel well, and I read
somebody else saying that you should hold off retracting the gear after
take-off for a little while to blow the slush and snow off. Should I do
one or the other or both?

Teacherjh wrote:


I was taught to tap the brakes to stop the wheels from spinning before tucking
them away. (spinning tires bulge out a bit, or so I was told) I confess I've
never actually looked down (sometimes I fly a cutlass) to see how long it takes
them to stop on their own.

At the rate it takes the Cessna single mains to retract, it's probably
stopped :-)

I'm not sure how tapping the brakes dislodges any snow. There's very little
shoe travel.

Correct, if you've got disks there's not much clearance there to begin
with. For other forms of brakes, it's not even going to do anything.

Of course all this stuff neglects the nose gear.

Teacherjh wrote:


I was taught to tap the brakes to stop the wheels from spinning before tucking
them away. (spinning tires bulge out a bit, or so I was told) I confess I've
never actually looked down (sometimes I fly a cutlass) to see how long it takes
them to stop on their own.

At the rate it takes the Cessna single mains to retract, it's probably
stopped :-)

I'm not sure how tapping the brakes dislodges any snow. There's very little
shoe travel.

Correct, if you've got disks there's not much clearance there to begin
with. For other forms of brakes, it's not even going to do anything.

Of course all this stuff neglects the nose gear.

Michelle P wrote:
Paul,
Tapping brakes stops the rotation before entering the wheel well. You do
not want them spinning into the gear well.

What do you do about the nose gear?

I can tell you what happens in the Navion. If you yank that gear up as
soon as you brake ground, the nose gear hits a rubber snubber to stop
it's rotation. Smells bad too. If you let it hang out a little
longer, the rotation isn't has bad.

Michelle P wrote:
Paul,
Tapping brakes stops the rotation before entering the wheel well. You do
not want them spinning into the gear well.

What do you do about the nose gear?

I can tell you what happens in the Navion. If you yank that gear up as
soon as you brake ground, the nose gear hits a rubber snubber to stop
it's rotation. Smells bad too. If you let it hang out a little
longer, the rotation isn't has bad.

(Paul Tomblin) wrote in message ...
This will be my first winter flying the club's Lance. One instructor told
me that you want to tap the brakes before retracting the gear to dislodge
any slush or snow so that it doesn't freeze in the wheel well, and I read
somebody else saying that you should hold off retracting the gear after
take-off for a little while to blow the slush and snow off. Should I do
one or the other or both?

There are two things here. Tapping the brakes is something started in
WWII because a B-17 would tip over when the gear come up if the wheels
were spinning (imagine the gyro action happening on those big wheels).
I believe most large aircraft today automatically apply brake pressure
when the hydro lifts the gear.
In the Mooney world we always read about Mooney pilots taking off,
getting slush in the gear and then freezing at altitude. I don't know
how tapping the brakes would change that though.

-Robert, CFI and Mooney owner

(Paul Tomblin) wrote in message ...
This will be my first winter flying the club's Lance. One instructor told
me that you want to tap the brakes before retracting the gear to dislodge
any slush or snow so that it doesn't freeze in the wheel well, and I read
somebody else saying that you should hold off retracting the gear after
take-off for a little while to blow the slush and snow off. Should I do
one or the other or both?

There are two things here. Tapping the brakes is something started in
WWII because a B-17 would tip over when the gear come up if the wheels
were spinning (imagine the gyro action happening on those big wheels).
I believe most large aircraft today automatically apply brake pressure
when the hydro lifts the gear.
In the Mooney world we always read about Mooney pilots taking off,
getting slush in the gear and then freezing at altitude. I don't know
how tapping the brakes would change that though.

-Robert, CFI and Mooney owner

Robert M. Gary wrote:


There are two things here. Tapping the brakes is something started in
WWII because a B-17 would tip over when the gear come up if the wheels
were spinning (imagine the gyro action happening on those big wheels).

Myth.

First, the wheels are NOT that big compared to the weight of the aircraft.

Second, the B-17 wheels are retracted along their plane of rotation.
They swing forward nestling in the inboard engine nacells. If you
land one gear up, it will roll on the retracted wheels (with other parts
of the aircraft scraping, however).