BFR and new experiences

[N9405V]

All of my plans were foiled by life and work to add a new rating before my 24 calendar months were up so I got with a friend that is a CFI and we went and flew. Everything was great, unusual attitude recovery, emergency procedures, landings, and other maneuvers.

The only real excitement was when we were doing slow flight in a landing configuration with the gear down, comes time to recover, raise the gear, and nothing happens. So, I cycle the switch again, and nothing happens, third time the gear comes up and it behaves the rest of the flight. I was playing it cool as a cucumber but in my mind I'm running through the "what the heck is wrong" list.

Well, long story short after a couple of adult beverages it hits me, "the airspeed gear limit switch!". So I pull out my trusty service manual and see that the switch should be set for around 75 mph before the gear are allowed to come up. Duh! I love flights when I learn something new about the plane.

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[Bob_Belville]

Another reason to love a Johnson Bar.

[Jeff_S]

I would say the gear limit switch did it's job in that respect. Seems like you'd want to recover to normal takeoff speed from that exercise before cleaning up the air frame. You're essentially simulating a go-around, so you want air speed and positive rate of climb established.  Good job keeping your cool, though...never let your instructor see you sweat!

[Danb]

My first thought in a situation like that ..did the dang CFI pull the breaker when u weren't looking..those guys are funny like that

Eg. On my inst. check ride about 30 yrs ago (jeez were getting old) the examiner other than jabbering away kept putting his feet on the rudder pedals I assume to see if I recognized his ways,

I ultimately asked him to keep his feet off my *%$%#*@! rudder pedals

He was quite pleased mentioned most examinees don't do that and he usually gets to make an extra $ 100 bucks in their retest..the dumb stuff we remember..

BTW good job and happy and safe flying.

[kortopates]

At least the more modern Mooney's have a gear safety bypass switch and a red light that would have illuminated when the gear is being raised to tell you why and enable you to bypass the warning and raise it. I can't say off the top when they started that but I'd bet the early J's had it if not sooner. Somebody will know.

But whenever the gear doesn't come up right away, its a good idea to check the actuator CB to see if its popped from the emergency manual handle being dislodged  - it should be a part of your emergency gear failure to raise checklist even though it took Mooney something like a decade to get that added to the POH's.

[Marauder]

At least the more modern Mooney's have a gear safety bypass switch and a red light that would have illuminated when the gear is being raised to tell you why and enable you to bypass the warning and raise it. I can't say off the top when they started that but I'd bet the early J's had it if not sooner. Somebody will know.

But whenever the gear doesn't come up right away, its a good idea to check the actuator CB to see if its popped from the emergency manual handle being dislodged - it should be a part of your emergency gear failure to raise checklist even though it took Mooney something like a decade to get that added to the POH's.

If you are interesting in installing one, Mooney sells a retrofit kit to allow it to be installed. It was not originally on my F and some really cold winters in WNY convinced me to install one.

I think they were initially only installed on the 77 or 78 Js on.

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[RobertGary1]

What year is your F that has the speed switch? I have one of the last F's and I only have the squat switch. It's interesting that Mooney squat switches work backwards. On the ground they hang free but compress when weight is off the gear.

-Robert

[Andy95W]

Another reason to love a Johnson Bar.

[RobertGary1]

 

 

 

I've never had my gear switch pop out. I'm just saying.

 

-Robert

[Ron McBride]

Lasar, put the switch in for me at my last annual.

 

Ron   69F

[Marauder]

What year is your F that has the speed switch? I have one of the last F's and I only have the squat switch. It's interesting that Mooney squat switches work backwards. On the ground they hang free but compress when weight is off the gear.

-Robert

Robert -- the override switch works on either the airspeed version of the squat switch or the mechanical one that we have in our F models. I have the mechanical squat switch.

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[N9405V]

1970 M20E. I remember from the retract test during the last annual that we had to put pressure on the pitot system to be able to actuate the gear.

I checked the CB when nothing happened and all was well.