DG-1000 undercarriage collapses and inadvertent extensions ?

Just for the record, that was Stefan, not me. :-)

As far as I know, I've always had the gear locked.

Jeremy [knocking on wood...]

Derek Copeland wrote:
Jeremy's uninformed guess is perfectly correct. The
problem is that to get the U/C properly overcentre
requires a really long and hard shove forward, and
there is only about a one mm difference in the position
of the lever between the U/C being locked down and
not locked down. The more recent of our two DG1000s
has a small detent in the sidewall to indicate that
the gear is properly locked down, but is still far
too heavy and awkward to operate, especially in the
front cockpit. On a recent flight it took me 10 attempts
to get the lever into the detent, and I am not exactly
small or weak.

Derek Copeland

At 19:36 18 April 2007, Stefan wrote:
Jeremy Zawodny schrieb:
Derek Copeland wrote:
Our club in the UK has two DG1000s with the two wheel
tail dragger configuration. We have had numerous undercarriage
collapses on landing, but as far as I know no unwanted
extentions in flight.
Our club has #23 and has put *a lot* of hours and
landings on it in the
last few years. No retract problems so far on landing.

My completely uninformed guess is that those unexpectedly
retracted
gears were just not locked. I *almost* landed with
an extended but
unlocked gear myself, but recognized the situation
just in time. It
takes a lot of force to correctly lock the gear. Start
the process early
and always visually double check the handle position.