Check for gear down, again and again....

[kortopates]

Be careful out there. The summer flying season appears to be well underway and in the last 5 reporting or business days, the FAA incidents/accidents data base is listing 4 Mooney's that landed with the gear up: a C, E, J & M model. Although most probably not all were accidental forgetting to lower the gear, that is the most common cause (including some of the "reported" gear collapses). Stay vigilant, it can happen to any of us when distracted.

https://www.asias.faa.gov/apex/f?p=100:93:::NO::: 

[Jim Peace]

43 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

That having been said, on several occasions, an hour or so after landing when I am mentally debriefing the flight, as is my custom, I have honestly not been able to consciously remember putting the gear down.  Especially when the flight was long or unusually stressful in some way. 

Scary stuff the human brain.  I can totally see how this happens as often as it does. And also why we have checklists. 

Jim

happens all the time to me with several items.  I can't tell you how many times in my Learjet days I drove back to the airport to check that the baggage light was off.  And it was,,,but for some reason I never remembered it and that was in my 20's.  Just happened to me in Nantucket last week.  Drove all the way back to the airport because I thought I left the master on.  Even with leaving the beacon switch on and looking back at the airplane when I walked away and not seeing it on I still did not remember or feel positive that is was off.  Uber made some money with me that day.

 

[Mooneymite]

I have no idea why there is still not an affordable technological solution to this hazard.

If you add up all the money spent on gear up landings, the solution would be much cheaper.

I have an electronic measuring tape in my tool box ($15 on Amazon).  Why cant it be rigged to lower the gear if it reads 50' or less with the gear up?

[ragedracer1977]

I can tell you for sure that at least one of those was a mechanical failure.  

[Hank]

Like Jim, I wait for the thump then check the light. Check the switch and light again on base, turn final and check the floor indicator. Then sometimes panic coming over the numbers at idle and check the green light again while debating shoving the throttle forward . . .

So far, so good. Eleven years and two weeks . . . . .

[Guest]

There are many different types of alerting systems out there.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/amphibiangear1.php

http://www.aircraftspruce.ca/catalog/avpages/av17voiceannunciator.php

Clarence

[gsxrpilot]

4 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Putting the landing gear down really is the only before landing checklist item I can think of that is mandatory every time.  If you think about them, some items are really only mandatory sometimes, but not always.  Most items are just there to get you ready for the go around, equipment failure, or crash that almost never happens.

This is exactly how I see it. Gear is the only mandatory item.

For me, it usually starts with my thinking about when and how to slow up for the approach or pattern. Based on that conversation in my head, I decide when the gear should go down. Once the gear is extended, I check it several times prior to landing. And every check includes three items, the light in the floor, the enunciator light in the panel and the gear lever. All should agree.

Fingers crossed and knock on wood, it hasn't happened to me. I did just over 8 hours in the last 24 hours. Austin to Denver and back. And we'll be flying the Mooney most of the month of July. I hope to bring her back home for her annual the first of August in as good condition as she is now.

[steingar]

I had the devil’s own time learning to use the J-bar, though it’s fine now.  That said, I always visually check it at every takeoff. It has a significant emotional momentum that I hope keeps me remembering it.  Odin knows I can forget just about anything else.

[Hank]

14 minutes ago, steingar said:

I had the decil’s own time learning to use the J-bar, though it’s fine now.  That said, I always visually check it at every takeoff. It has a significant emotional momentum that I hope keeps me remembering it.  Odin knows I can forget just about anything else.

You and me both! But I check my little electric switch before every landing, as an accidental gear up will probably end my flying . . . . And I really want to join the UFOs. A man has to have goals.  

[midlifeflyer]

5 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

That having been said, on several occasions, an hour or so after landing when I am mentally debriefing the flight, as is my custom, I have honestly not been able to consciously remember putting the gear down. 

I suspect most of us have experienced that sensation. I had it after an emergency. Still no memory of putting it down. I did.

I'm not sure it's a bad thing. Maybe it's a sign that putting down the gear at a certain point of a flight, whatever our SOP might be, has become so ingrained as to become a hard to break habit. Not impossible to break, but hard.

[Hank]

5 minutes ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Maybe you are right.  Muscle memory, we call it in firearms training. I very much believe in it. 

Muscle memory is important in many physical tasks--shooting, carving, flipping food in a skillet, splitting firewood, metalworking, waxing your car / plane, twisting up safety wire, sliding around the garage / hangar floor on a creeper, sanding your wooden, metallic or fiberglass project, etc. Even hitting tennjs and golf balls . . . . And my favorite, throwing and catching a football.

[toto]

5 hours ago, Mooneymite said:

I have no idea why there is still not an affordable technological solution to this hazard.

If you add up all the money spent on gear up landings, the solution would be much cheaper.

I have an electronic measuring tape in my tool box ($15 on Amazon).  Why cant it be rigged to lower the gear if it reads 50' or less with the gear up?

Piper had an automatic gear extension system available as an option on late-70's Arrows.

The system was widely disliked, I guess because there was a perception that the gear extension could come at the worst possible time. (Adding a bunch of drag when you're trying to eke out a marginal climb.)

It was possible to disable the system with a little lock switch on the center console near the flap handle. I've seen Arrows that have a "disable auto-extend" on the custom pre-takeoff checklist. 

Anyway, it always seemed like cheap insurance to me, and the system seems to work as advertised. But it only lasted a couple of years in the market before Piper removed it completely. 

I don't remember whether the Piper system was based purely on airspeed, but it certainly didn't include a radar altimeter. If you made the same system today, you could probably incorporate GPS position and lower the gear only if you're within some threshold distance from a published runway. 

[Andy95W]

5 hours ago, Mooneymite said:

 

I have an electronic measuring tape in my tool box ($15 on Amazon).  Why cant it be rigged to lower the gear if it reads 50' or less with the gear up?

I'm trying to imagine how that will work for the Johnson bar Mooneys like mine... 

...maybe a big scary guy to yell "GEAR, DUMBASS!"  in your ear at 50'.  

[Mooneymite]

9 hours ago, M20Doc said:

There are many different types of alerting systems out there.

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/avpages/amphibiangear1.php

http://www.aircraftspruce.ca/catalog/avpages/av17voiceannunciator.php

Clarence

Yes.  I'm aware that there are warning systems available for the Mooney, but they all work either on airspeed, or throttle position.

What I want is a system that is absolute altitude based like an EGPWS gear warning.  Absolute altitude could be derived from a proximity sensor, or even terrain mapping database and would lower the gear bypassing the snoozing pilot's inaction..

Yes.  We might have to forego the really low gear-up high-speed passes, unless an over-ride feature was incorporated..

For those without an electric gear @Andy95W, the system could send a large electric shock to the pilot thus building a Pavlov's dog adverse reaction to forgetting the gear.  

[midlifeflyer]

7 hours ago, toto said:

Piper had an automatic gear extension system available as an option on late-70's Arrows.

The system was widely disliked, I guess because there was a perception that the gear extension could come at the worst possible time. (Adding a bunch of drag when you're trying to eke out a marginal climb.)

It was possible to disable the system with a little lock switch on the center console near the flap handle. I've seen Arrows that have a "disable auto-extend" on the custom pre-takeoff checklist. 

Anyway, it always seemed like cheap insurance to me, and the system seems to work as advertised. But it only lasted a couple of years in the market before Piper removed it completely. 

I don't remember whether the Piper system was based purely on airspeed, but it certainly didn't include a radar altimeter. If you made the same system today, you could probably incorporate GPS position and lower the gear only if you're within some threshold distance from a published runway. 

It was airspeed based, automatically  extending and preventing retraction below a certain airspeed unless overridden. There was some variation in the target airspeed among models. The disabling  and, I suppose the eventual dropping of the feature was at least partly the result of of an NTSB recommendation after some accidents in which the system was said to have contributed.

This is the NTSB letter to the FAA back in 1970.

[steingar]

I forget all sorts of near term things.  I can't recall locking the door to house this morning, for example.  Doesn't mean I didn't do it, just can't recall the action.  But I remember putting the gear down landing on Sunday.  In fact, I recall putting the gear down on all three landings.

With my luck I'll get complacent, loose the emotional involvement and wind up one of those who will.

[1964-M20E]

With our planes, as others have said, gear down is the most important of all things on landing.  Everything else will sort itself out, flaps, mixture, prop etc.  This philosophy might not apply on larger more complex planes.

G - gear down.

U - undercarriage  (gear down)!

M - moron make sure the gear is down!!

P - pecker head put the gear down!!!

S - SOB put the #$#%^&%$ gear down now!!!!!!!!!

 

 

[gsxrpilot]

32 minutes ago, 1964-M20E said:

With our planes, as others have said, gear down is the most important of all things on landing.  Everything else will sort itself out, flaps, mixture, prop etc.  This philosophy might not apply on larger more complex planes.

G - gear down.

U - undercarriage  (gear down)!

M - moron make sure the gear is down!!

P - pecker head put the gear down!!!

S - SOB put the #$#%^&%$ gear down now!!!!!!!!!

Love it!

[Johnnybgoode]

11 hours ago, Hank said:

Muscle memory is important in many physical tasks--shooting, carving, flipping food in a skillet, splitting firewood, metalworking, waxing your car / plane, twisting up safety wire, sliding around the garage / hangar floor on a creeper, sanding your wooden, metallic or fiberglass project, etc. Even hitting tennjs and golf balls . . . . And my favorite, throwing and catching a football.

 

Yup, he's from Alabama.

 

[KLRDMD]

19 hours ago, bluehighwayflyer said:

Like most of us, I am the guy who checks to make sure the gear is down several times prior to landing. 

I know this is done regularly, and taught regularly, but it has never made sense to me. Does it really matter if the gear is down on downwind ? Does it really matter if the gear is down on base ? All that really matters is if the gear is down before the wheels touch. Giving a bit of a cushion and to take some "busyness" away from short final, I find one gear down check (actually I do one complete GUMPS check, touching each of the items as I call them out) right after turning final to be sufficient. It isn't like once you've verified the gear is down just one time, it is going to come back up by itself.

[1964-M20E]

8 minutes ago, KLRDMD said:

I know this is done regularly, and taught regularly, but it has never made sense to me. Does it really matter if the gear is down on downwind ? Does it really matter if the gear is down on base ? All that really matters is if the gear is down before the wheels touch. Giving a bit of a cushion and to take some "busyness" away from short final, I find one gear down check (actually I do one complete GUMPS check, touching each of the items as I call them out) right after turning final to be sufficient. It isn't like once you've verified the gear is down just one time, it is going to come back up by itself.

True one good GUMPS is all you need.  By doing it 3 times it decreases the chances that you will forget it and give you 3 chances to make sure you put the gear down.  Not only that sometimes things can get quite busy something unexpected to disrupt you sequence and bam no gear to land on.  Just think Allstate commercials with mayhem.

Everyone here knows that forgetting the gear will make for a very bad day of flying.

[KLRDMD]

4 minutes ago, 1964-M20E said:

True one good GUMPS is all you need.  By doing it 3 times it decreases the chances that you will forget it and give you 3 chances to make sure you put the gear down.  Not only that sometimes things can get quite busy something unexpected to disrupt you sequence and bam no gear to land on.  Just think Allstate commercials with mayhem. Everyone here knows that forgetting the gear will make for a very bad day of flying.

Do you check each magneto before takeoff three times ? Do you check that the flight controls are "free and correct" before takeoff three times ?  A bad magneto or locked controls lead to a much worse day than landing gear up.

[Mooneymite]

Remarks like "I always do such and such", generate an eye-roll reaction in me since everyone I've talked to that has landed gear up assured me they ALWAYS checked the gear.

In a multi-pilot cockpit I have seen highly trained/disciplined pilots point to an item, give the proper checklist response when the item was clearly not where it was supposed to be.

Given enough opportunities, humans (even super humans) will eventually screw up.

I am a firm believer in checklists, but technology, not SOPs is the solution to unintentional gear-ups.

 

[Hank]

9 minutes ago, KLRDMD said:

Do you check each magneto before takeoff three times ? Do you check that the flight controls are "free and correct" before takeoff three times ?  A bad magneto or locked controls lead to a much worse day than landing gear up.

No, because when I'm doing those, the plane is sitting still, I'm holding the brakes, my finger is on the checklist item and I'm not doing anything else.

When I dropping the gear on downwind, I'm also flying the plane, maintaining alignment and spacing with the runway, checking altitude and airspeed, looking for conflicting traffic, confirming windsock direction and/or GPS groundspeed vs. airspeed, looking at the runway and talking on the radio; when available, I'm also listening to AWOS/ASOS.

There have been times in the flare when I was absolutely unsure that I had put the gear down . . . . That's a really, really uncomfortable feeling, but I managed to only go to half throttle before confirming the green light was on and the switch appeared to be down.

[steingar]

It is a pernicious problem.  I've heard folks talk about how they could never forget the gear.  I promise you that I could distract anyone to the point of forgetting to put down the gears and I don't hold a patch on your average 4-year-old (though Mrs. Steingar says I have the maturity of one).