Would you cycle the gear?

"David Lesher" wrote in message ...
Robert Moore writes:


Didn't have a POH in a DC-10 cockpit. He probably had an Aircraft Flight
Manual, and I haven't seen an AFM yet that has said that something could
not happen.

Heck, even after they managed to get patched in to Boeing,

Why did he call Boeing with a problem in a Douglas (MD) aircraft?

Because Boeing owns MD, I suspect.

Not back when Al Haines was having problems.

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...

"David Lesher" wrote in message
...
Robert Moore writes:


Didn't have a POH in a DC-10 cockpit. He probably had an Aircraft
Flight
Manual, and I haven't seen an AFM yet that has said that something
could
not happen.

Heck, even after they managed to get patched in to Boeing,

Why did he call Boeing with a problem in a Douglas (MD) aircraft?

Because Boeing owns MD, I suspect.

Not back when Al Haines was having problems.

Boeing killed the airplane based on liability concerns, as liability is
based mostly on expectations. "If it ain't Boing I'm not going" is a very
high level of expectation.

AOPA seems to be taking the same track in letting the public know that small
GA should not be held to the same liability standard as airliner suppliers,
by lowering expectations of safety through education.

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

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

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?

A few days ago I posted an except from the Arrow POH, Section 4, entitled
"EMERGENCY LANDING GEAR EXTENSION". The introductory line reads, "If
landing gear does not check down and locked: ...."

Faced with any emergency I will always perform the POH procedure first. If
that fails, I'll get creative.

"William W. Plummer" wrote in message
news:QScdc.218801$Cb.1911757@attbi_s51...


Faced with any emergency I will always perform the POH procedure first.
If
that fails, I'll get creative.

I think a better rule (borrowed from medicine but equally applicable to an
aviation emergency) is "First Do No Harm."

If the POH procedure is ambiguous and might refer to a no-wheels situation
but the pilot instead faces a no-nosegar situation, then I do not agree the
pilot should immediately follow the POH which may or may not apply to his
situation. A judgement call on the part of the pilot is quite appropriate
here, and that judgment may or may not apply to this situation.

An excellent analagous situation is one I posted about earlier: engine
failure. My POH only addresses "engine failure" and does not distinguish
between partial or complete engine failure. Surely you will agree that a
partial engine failure in a single-engine airplane should be treated
differently than a complete engine failure -- correct?

"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.

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?

Roy,

I don't think you could have harmed anything further by cycling the gear.
Knowing how the PA28 gear system works, you can always free-fall them all
into position should you have a complete hydraulic failure.

Chances are, there was an out of rig microswitch on the nose gear, sending a
signal to the hydraulic power pack that the nose gear was not down and
locked. When the power pack received this signal, it re-energized for a
second until the microswitch was closed. When it de-energized, the
microswitch re-opened, sending the signal back to the power pack and the
vicious cycle repeated itself over and over again ... hence the cycling of
the 'in transit' (aka 'pump on') light. You could have verified all of this
by looking for a spike on the ammeter as the electric motor in the hydraulic
power pack cycled off and on.

In any case, the green light would have never illuminated at all for the
nose if it had not reached the locked position. Once it reaches the locked
position, it is not unlocking unless you select the gear up.

In either case, you were safe. It was simply an indication issue brought on
by an out of rig switch. Mx should have detected this and fixed it
otherwise it will likely occur again.

-RH

"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
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?

True enough, however, in an emergency situation, we may deviate from any
procedure, as necessary, to meet the given needs of the emergency.

I'm an airline driver too and page 1 of our AOM-1 (that's our aircraft
flight manual) specifically states that all of the given procedures may not
adequately address each and every problem we may encounter. It goes on to
say that we can utilize experience and judgement if/when we decide to
deviate from a procedure or expand upon one.

In the end, checklists are not all encompassing and sometimes we have to use
some of that 'pilot sh**' to save the day.

-RH

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

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.

You might be suprised Richard. I fly a relatively new design, all glass,
fully automated airliner. Out of all of the 'issues' I have had with this
aircraft, probably only 10% of them were actually corrected solely via an
Emerg/Abnormal checklist. Oftentimes, the problem is a little more compound
in nature and improvisation is definitely necessary and in fact encouraged.

As the old saying goes ... checklists are CHECKlists, not DOlists.

-RH

"Ryan R. Healy" wrote in message
...

I'm an airline driver too and page 1 of our AOM-1 (that's our aircraft
flight manual) specifically states that all of the given procedures may
not
adequately address each and every problem we may encounter. It goes on to
say that we can utilize experience and judgement if/when we decide to
deviate from a procedure or expand upon one.

I think that makes a lot of sense.

Does this philosophy carry over to your simulator-based recurrent training?

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

www.flyimc.com

Howdy!

In article ,
David Cartwright wrote:
"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
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.
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.
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?

I'd have made the same decision as you - stick with what seems to be a
pretty good situation (instead of risking cycling the gear and ending up
worse off), get the tower to have a shufti at your dangly bits, and on
receiving a promising report from them, attempt a gentle approach, holding
the nose off for as long as is practical.

The only thing I'd be tempted to do in addition, assuming your airfield is
big enough, you're experienced enough, and there's enough time to make it a
reasonably safe manoeuvre, is to make a power-off, glide landing, and to get
the second pair of hands in the cockpit (in this case your student) to crank
the propeller with the starter so it's roughly horizontal and thus won't
bash the runway. A prop strike will generally shock-load the engine and
necessitate a complete strip down.

....so you'd voluntarily turn a routine landing into a dead-stick landing?
Including the fun part of getting the prop to stop?

As long as the fan is keeping the pilot cool, why give it up?

This said, the usual rules apply: if in doubt, take the approach that is
most likely to get you walk away from the "landing", and if that means
shock-loading the engine, so be it.

The big doubt above is getting the prop actually stopped while leaving
yourself in a position to make a reasonalbe approach and landing.

yours,
Michael


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