Would you cycle the gear?

I was with a student in one of our club Arrows. We put the gear down
and got green lights for the 2 mains, but not for the nose.

The nose green light was flashing, as was the yellow "gear in transit"
light. Both were flashing about twice per second, and in opposition
(i.e. as the green went on, the yellow went off, and vice versa).

The maintenance people were unable to reproduce the problem and the
plane was returned to service. Best guess is a slight misalignment of
one of the limit switches.

What would you have done? Would you have cycled the gear hoping to fix
the problem, or would you have accepted the possible unlocked nosegear
in exchange for the known locked mains?

My experience with an Arrow is that it's usually a misallignment of the
microswitches which causes the 'gear not-locked' indication(s).

Something else to try is to use the emergency 'drop-gear' lever and
also some porpoising to nudge the wheel into the locked-position.

Ahh, come on guys!
You go up to altitude and stall the airplane.
The reduced air pressure against the nose gear allows the spring and
gravity to force the gear forward.
If you still have a gear unsafe/in transit light, declare your emergency
and land as described.
This is common practice, though not publish, for some aircraft
(AeroCommander 112, for example).

I'm a bit confused. Why would you fail to follow the POH directions under
"Emergency Landing Gear Extension" in Section 4? For reference it says...

5. Reduce speed below 100 mph
6. Move landing gear selector switch to gear down position
7. If gear has failed to lock down, raise emergency gear lever to
"Override Engaged" position
8. If gear has still failed to lock down, move emergency gear lever to
"Emergency Down" position
9. If gear has still failed to lock down, yaw the airplane abruptly from
side to side with the rudder.

NOTE If all elctrical power has been lost, the landing gear m ust be
extended using the above emergency procedures. The landing gear position
indicator lights will not be operative.




"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
I had an interesting experience the other day.

I was with a student in one of our club Arrows. We put the gear down
and got green lights for the 2 mains, but not for the nose.

The nose green light was flashing, as was the yellow "gear in transit"
light. Both were flashing about twice per second, and in opposition
(i.e. as the green went on, the yellow went off, and vice versa).

We ran the checklists in the POH, but did not try to cycle the gear. My
theory at the time was that since we had indication of both mains down
and locked, we should probably not mess with things any more.

On the one hand, cycling it might have fixed whatever was wrong.

On the other hand, what we had now (both mains down and locked) was not
only a survivable configuration, but one which would result in
relatively minor damage if the nose gear was indeed not locked (prop
strike). If something was jammed mechanically, cycling it could have
possibly resulted in no gear at all, or (worse) asymmetric extension).

We told the tower what was going on and requested a low pass so they
could look under the plane to see what was there. Tower reported all
three gear appeared to be down, so I just landed as gently as I could.
I was relieved when everything held together.

The maintenance people were unable to reproduce the problem and the
plane was returned to service. Best guess is a slight misalignment of
one of the limit switches.

What would you have done? Would you have cycled the gear hoping to fix
the problem, or would you have accepted the possible unlocked nosegear
in exchange for the known locked mains?

For those that are worried about such things, the outfall of our
declaring an emergency was about 2 minutes worth of paperwork. The fire
truck followed us to the ramp and the crew asked us a couple of
questions for their report. The tower also shut the runway until the
airport operations folks did a FOD inspection and declared it open again
(which must have taken all of about a minute).

In article %0ibc.61265$K91.149112@attbi_s02,
"William W. Plummer" wrote:

I'm a bit confused. Why would you fail to follow the POH directions under
"Emergency Landing Gear Extension" in Section 4?

We did indeed pull out the book and read those instructions. We
followed all of them except for the one which said to raise the
emergency gear lever. We had the mains down and locked and didn't want
to do anything which might compromise that.

Was that the right decision? In retrospect, I'm not sure, but that's
what we were thinking at the time.

Roy Smith wrote:

In article %0ibc.61265$K91.149112@attbi_s02,
"William W. Plummer" wrote:

I'm a bit confused. Why would you fail to follow the POH directions under
"Emergency Landing Gear Extension" in Section 4?

We did indeed pull out the book and read those instructions. We
followed all of them except for the one which said to raise the
emergency gear lever. We had the mains down and locked and didn't want
to do anything which might compromise that.

Was that the right decision? In retrospect, I'm not sure, but that's
what we were thinking at the time.

I can tell you that if you were given that problem on a checkride, sim or
airplane, you prob. wouldn't have passed. Procedures were developed and tested
by manufacturers. Yes, as PIC you have the authority to decide NOT to follow
Emergency Procedures, but you will have to explain that to the Check
Airman/Examiner/Fed. In the airlines, we follow the QRH(Quick Reference
Handbook). If it says cycle the gear, we cycle the gear. If it doesn't lock
down, we retract and hit the Emerg.. Extension Switch and let it free-fall. If
it still doesn't work, we plan for a one, two, or all-wheels up landing.

What did the Fed say when you told him you didn't follow the checklist?

TJ, B757 I/P
PHX
================================================== ===============
Pilots track their lives by the number of hours in the air,
as if any other time isn't worth noting....
Michael Rarfit

On Sat, 03 Apr 2004 01:47:40 GMT, "Capt. Wild Bill Kelso, USAAC"
wrote:

snip

I can tell you that if you were given that problem on a checkride, sim or
airplane, you prob. wouldn't have passed. Procedures were developed and tested
by manufacturers. Yes, as PIC you have the authority to decide NOT to follow
Emergency Procedures, but you will have to explain that to the Check
Airman/Examiner/Fed. In the airlines, we follow the QRH(Quick Reference
Handbook). If it says cycle the gear, we cycle the gear. If it doesn't lock
down, we retract and hit the Emerg.. Extension Switch and let it free-fall. If
it still doesn't work, we plan for a one, two, or all-wheels up landing.

What did the Fed say when you told him you didn't follow the checklist?

FWIW, according to his accounting of events, the ONLY checklist item
that he skipped (engage auto extension override) would have no
mechanical effect on the operation/indication of the landing gear
system.

I agree that following published checklist procedures (especially
during abnormal/emergency operation) is important.

TC

wrote in message
...

I agree that following published checklist procedures (especially
during abnormal/emergency operation) is important.

If there is a published checklist for "nose gear not down and locked" then I
agree.

If the only published checklist is for the different situation of "gear not
down and locked" (i.e. no gear down) then I disagree with you because the
checklist does not directly relate to the pilot's situation.

Which situation(s) are addressed in the Arrow checklist?


--------------------
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Capt. Wild Bill Kelso, USAAC" wrote in message
...

I can tell you that if you were given that problem on a checkride, sim or
airplane, you prob. wouldn't have passed. Procedures were developed and
tested

In my sim he would have passed with flying colors --- he did not blindly
follow a generic checklist or rush to a pre-programmed course of action, but
instead he used his knowledge of airplane systems to develop a reasoned
response to his particular situation. A+ in my book for that

by manufacturers. Yes, as PIC you have the authority to decide NOT to
follow
Emergency Procedures, but you will have to explain that to the Check
Airman/Examiner/Fed. In the airlines, we follow the QRH(Quick Reference

Particularly in general aviation airplanes, there are lots of situations not
covered in the POH or at least lots of nuances not covered in the POH.

For example, the POH for most single-engine piston airplanes says to land as
quickly as practical after an engine failure. But what should you do if you
have a partial engine faillure? The correct response as far as I am
concerned in my simulator is to immediately climb regardless of any prior
ATC clearance or instructions and I would venture to believe that most
pilots would agree with this, even though I am aware of no POH which
includes this in the published procedure.

Consider that airlines have a LOT more established emergency procedures and
a lot more equipment redundancy, so whereas you might be correct that in an
airline situation there is a proper checklist for almost every situation, in
piston general aviation the pilot may need to do more independent thinking
to solve a problem. And even in the airline world, there is a Capt. Haynes
who made a landing in South Dakota a number of years ago who probably agrees
as well that independent thinking by an airline pilot is a good thing.

--
Richard Kaplan, CFII

www.flyimc.com

"Richard Kaplan" wrote:

For example, the POH for most single-engine piston airplanes says to land as
quickly as practical after an engine failure.

As if you have a choice?

But what should you do if you
have a partial engine faillure? The correct response as far as I am
concerned in my simulator is to immediately climb regardless of any prior
ATC clearance or instructions and I would venture to believe that most
pilots would agree with this, even though I am aware of no POH which
includes this in the published procedure.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here, and ask why? The obvious
answer is "altitude is your friend", so you want to get as much of it as
you can while you still can. And, I certainly agree that in a situation
like this, I'll do whatever I think is best and let ATC fend for
themselves. But...

If there's something mechanically wrong with the engine, might adding
power for a climb make things worse?

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in
s.com:

the airline world, there is a Capt. Haynes who made a landing in South
Dakota a number of years ago who probably agrees as well that
independent thinking by an airline pilot is a good thing.

Yeah, but he had a bit of a different situation. He had a POH which said
it couldn't happen!!! Heck, even after they managed to get patched in to
Boeing, the engineers kept telling him that he was wrong and that there
could not be anything wrong with the hydraulics.

As you said, sometimes the "man on the spot" just has to think for himself.

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James M. Knox
TriSoft ph 512-385-0316
1109-A Shady Lane fax 512-366-4331
Austin, Tx 78721
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