Gear Warning

At 21:00 17 November 2005, Eric Greenwell wrote:
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.

As Bill has correctly pointed out the BGA discourage
the use of undercarriage warnings on the grounds that
activation in the late stage of an approach could itself
cause problems. It is better to land wheels up than
loose control trying to put the wheel down close to
the ground. The cure is worse than the disease. It
can be particulary dangerous where the undercarriage
lever is on the right hand side of the cockpit.

The argument still rages over here between the 'configure
the glider for landing' as soon as that decision is
made. and the pre landing mnemonic. Again as Bill pointed
out challenge and response mnemonics tend to become
automatic both in challenge and response, especially
when learned in gliders which do not have water, flaps
or a retractable undercarriage.

During fixed-gear single-engine training decades ago, the plane was
equipped with a "gear" switch with red and green lights. My instructor
recognized the problem of transitioning from fixed to retractable gear
and taught gear operation from day one. Even flying a stinkpot Cessna
172 these days I find myself reaching for the gear switch!

Also, mnemonics are useful, but can also be problematic. For my glider
training I was taught "USTALL", which unfortunately doesn't prompt you
to drop water ballast. Guess who's landed full of water a few times!

My revised mnemonic is "BUSTALL", which is especially appropriate to
those who don't use it and land gear up!

Mike