Student practices landing with gear up

Dylan Smith wrote:
On 2006-07-20, gatt wrote:
GUMPS. I hope I never forget it.

GUMP does not stand for Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop.

It actually stands for:

G - Gear Down
U - Undercarriage down
M - Make sure the wheels are down
P - Put the wheels down

You forgot the "S" (it's GUMPS, not GUMP):

S - Are you SURE the wheels are down?

.... Alan

--
Alan Gerber
gerber AT panix DOT com

"steve" wrote in message
. ..
They just sent me an email stating that a student pilot from the flight
center they share it with, landed it with the gear up. How embarrassing,
especially since the plane has an automatic gear down deployment once it
drops below 100mph and the manifold and rpm resemble a landing
configuration. He/she must have shut it off. It has a loud alarm that
sounds off in that situation, so I don't know what might have happened..

Depending on what else he was doing with the airplane that flight, it might
not be surprising for the automatic deployment to be disabled temporarily
(I'm assuming that since you're familiar with the airplane, you know whether
it's been permanently disabled, and that it hasn't been). It's common to
disable the auto deployment when practicing power-on stalls, for example (so
the gear doesn't drop while you get the airplane slowed down and otherwise
configured for the stall).

As for the warning horn, most retractable gear airplanes are equipped with
gear warning horns, and pilots frequently manage to ignore them. It seems
to me that in many gear-up landings, they are preceded by some sort of
distraction. Something odd about the traffic pattern entry, or having to
extend the pattern, or something along those lines. Of course, when a
distraction happens, the pilot may well find himself having to focus even
more, and this focus can result in not being aware of a warning horn.
Ironic, since that's just when the horn is most needed.

Anyway, I'd say that history has shown us that the airplane features you
mention (auto deply and warning horn) are not 100% effective in preventing
gear-up landings. Too often, the very factors that led to the gear-up
landing in the first place are related to why those features don't wind up
being useful.

Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:

As for the warning horn, most retractable gear airplanes are equipped with
gear warning horns, and pilots frequently manage to ignore them
snip

With regards to my Bonanza, this horn is practically useless as it will
only sound when manifold pressure drops below 12 inches, well below the
green arc on the MP gauge (implying that for the majority of the approach
the horn would be silent).

It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back, which in my case
typically is less than 50 feet above the runway or about a second before
touchdown.


--
Peter

"Peter R." wrote:

It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back, which in my case
typically is less than 50 feet above the runway or about a second before
touchdown.

Sorry, didn't finish my thought he

It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back that MP drops below
12 inches and into warning horn range.

--
Peter

It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back, which in my case
typically is less than 50 feet above the runway or about a second before
touchdown.

You land with a vertical speed of fifty feet per second? I don't think
it matters whether it's gear up or down at that point!

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

Jose wrote:

It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back, which in my case
typically is less than 50 feet above the runway or about a second before
touchdown.

You land with a vertical speed of fifty feet per second? I don't think
it matters whether it's gear up or down at that point!

LESS than. I guess the tears in your eyes from your uncontrollable
laughter perhaps prevented you from reading that part.

--
Peter

Peter R. wrote:

Jose wrote:


It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back, which in my case
typically is less than 50 feet above the runway or about a second before
touchdown.

You land with a vertical speed of fifty feet per second? I don't think
it matters whether it's gear up or down at that point!


LESS than. I guess the tears in your eyes from your uncontrollable
laughter perhaps prevented you from reading that part.


Even if it was half that, 25 fps is still 1500 fpm, which is a pretty
hefty rate of descent that close to the runway. I probably take 6 or
more seconds from 50 feet to touchdown.


Matt

Then your horn is not set properly. Also 50x60=3000 so if
you are coming down at 3000 fpm at 50 ft agl, your landings
are something to see.

The Arrow system could be defeated in two ways. As I recall
the first gear up was done by a pilot who made a high power
very flat high speed approach to a runway and flared and
pulled the power off just a foot above the surface. The
plane touched down before the gear had a chance to begin to
extend.

Others happened when CFIs practicing/teaching stalls used a
small wooden block to wedge the over-ride lever UP so they
could do slow flight and stalls without the gear falling
down and without having to hold the lever up by hand. They
would forget the block.


--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
| Peter Duniho wrote:
|
| As for the warning horn, most retractable gear airplanes
are equipped with
| gear warning horns, and pilots frequently manage to
ignore them
| snip
|
| With regards to my Bonanza, this horn is practically
useless as it will
| only sound when manifold pressure drops below 12 inches,
well below the
| green arc on the MP gauge (implying that for the majority
of the approach
| the horn would be silent).
|
| It is not until power is pulled almost all the way back,
which in my case
| typically is less than 50 feet above the runway or about a
second before
| touchdown.
|
|
| --
| Peter

Jim Macklin wrote:

Then your horn is not set properly.

OK, when should it sound? 17 inches MP?

Also 50x60=3000 so if
you are coming down at 3000 fpm at 50 ft agl, your landings
are something to see.

sigh You, too?

--
Peter

Yes, about 15-17 inches, low enough that you can slow down
and cool the engine without the horn sounding on every
landing. Depending on the model of your Bonanza, you can
use approach flaps and gear at 152 kts [if my old memory
works] but some models have much lower speeds. You will
need to plan your descents so that the airplane can slow
down to Vlo and Vfe without needing to shock cool the engine
and without hearing the horn.

A normal approach would involve a descent to TPA 2-3 miles
from the airport, then slowing to Vfe, gear down as required
to begin the descent at 700 fpm/85-100 kts depending on
traffic.
If your Bonanza has three green lights, check them 5 seconds
after you put the gear lever down. If yours is an old
model, with just one green light, understand that the gear
down microswitch is on the gear housing under the center
spar cover and it is looking at the position of the gear
housing. Since the Bonanza and Baron use steel push/pull
rods to operate the gear, if one gear leg is up or one is
down, the other two have to be in the same position unless
the steel rods are bent or the housing has broken. Have a
mechanic show you the system while it is on the jacks during
the 100 hr or annual.

On a flight, take a ruler up and set the throttle at the
power you'd use, 15-17 inches and measure the position of
the throttle and then your mechanic can set the warning horn
microswitch in the correct place.



--
James H. Macklin
ATP,CFI,A&P

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
| Jim Macklin wrote:
|
| Then your horn is not set properly.
|
| OK, when should it sound? 17 inches MP?
|
| Also 50x60=3000 so if
| you are coming down at 3000 fpm at 50 ft agl, your
landings
| are something to see.
|
| sigh You, too?
|
| --
| Peter