Gear Up Landings

[brad]

My intention is not to start a rant from the group.

I sublease my hangar to another Mooney pilot.  He has a beautiful 231 with new interior, Dual Aspen Pros, and great paint...and as of Saturday, Class 26 (totaled).

For a little background, I started as a WSO in the F4 in 1971.  Got my first Mooney in 2001 - 1600 hours in type.  I'm 71 now.  My insurance has been brokered by Travers Aviation since 2001.  I read with interest the MAPA Log article last month ref. insurance as we age.  The article had excellent points and a caution - as we age, we might have to go to fixed gear.

I don't want to stop flying my Mooney.  So, please, pay attention to GUMPS.  As a group, we must stop landing gear up - our planes and our future insurance coverage depend on it!

Brad

[MooneyMitch]

I promise to do my very best not to land without my landing gear extended Brad !  

I have not read the MAPA article, but I've been informed that 70 years of living is the time when our rates are expected to begin to rise.  Gear ups and other issues that the insurance industry thinks are going to cause us to make claims in order to take some of their money back............they don't like that !

I don't look forward to stop flying my Mooney either, but I will say that more than likely, the cost of my insurance will not dictate that.  My stopping will be when I feel I'm physically or mentally diminished to the point that I'm not safe for me and/or others.  Not yet [I don't think anyway ]

[steingar]

Insurance could easily make me abandon my Mooney, though I certainly don't want to.  Who knows, maybe by the time I'm 70 I'll want to slow down.  More likely I'll want to speed up, knowing i have less time left.

[M20F-1968]

I have a P2 gear warning system installed.  Installation is not difficult.  The system relies on airspeed and (at least in my F) throttle position.  

It is worth its cost.  The gear warning is a male voice for gear down for landing, and a repeating female voice saying Gear, Gear... for gear not down.

It also reports gear overspeed.  

It do not use these other 2 functions, but reports stalls verbally (I have a Proscan annunciator which already does that.)  and has an hookup for a Hobbs meter which records flight time.

I would highly recommend this install.  

John Breda

[MooneyMitch]

I’ve read stories where both audible and visual gear alerts have been ignored, resulting in a gear up landing.

I’m thinking something along the lines of a doggie stimulation collar ( you know, a shock collar to get its attention) for the PIC!  Intensity level adjustable of course !  

[jlunseth]

I have a thought on that.  I have noticed that quite a lot of Mooney pilots put the gear down at the last minute, either on downwind in the pattern or just before the airport.  I have even heard that taught.  The theory is you have a Mooney, why not use it to go fast until the last minute.  Of course, that fails to consider that the pattern is full of distractions, another aircraft on base, someone not getting off the ground fast enough, an amended instruction from the controller, the list is endless.  I put the gear down no closer than six miles out.  It lets me slow the plane down from cruise to approach speed, I do it before all the distractions start happening, and if I fail to do it I have two or three more chances to catch it, on downwind, on base, and on final.  I check all three times.  And if you forget all the checks your airplane's unwillingness to slow down will remind you, if you give it a little time to remind you.  Dropping the gear on short final, hot pilot that you are in that Mooney, will sooner or later get you.

[MooneyMitch]

Those that have, and those that will !  I've heard that too...............

[RobertGary1]

I have the av-17 voice annunictor. It’s hard to ignore bitch’n Betty which is why the airliners use it. 
 

-Robert 

[RobertGary1]

Putting the gear down 6 miles out may work well at small fields but flying into class B’s and busy class C’s at 120 mph is going to get you jn a very long hold. 
 

-Robert 

[Ibra]

39 minutes ago, MooneyMitch said:

I’m thinking something along the lines of a doggie stimulation collar

I was thinking more something linked to PTT button that reminds us to put gear down each time we press for an RT call (or flying in general: correct speed, height...) 

I highly doubt anyone would land gear up in a calm circuit with no radio/traffic  if we do that then our case here is really hopeless 

Mooney configuration is easier to spot from performance: if you watch your speed carefully, you can't forget flaps/gear up/down compared to many other draggy RGs 

But that assumes one can carefully watch our flying speed/performance under distractions... not that adding AoA warnings/yoke shakers did not prevent stalls/spins as much as the training for stall recognition symptoms did, so aside from checks along the pattern, I guess we need to come up with a list of 5 symptoms that tells us the gear is not down?

PS: for those who hate flying distraction is the cure, for those who love flying a disease, unfortunately no one is offering reverse treatments 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/conquer-fear-flying/201210/can-distraction-control-fear-flying

[xcrmckenna]

I do my best every flight to prepare myself to lower my gear. If I have a passenger with me I tell them they have one job and that’s to make sure I lower the gear before we land. Not to sound like a jerk but my insurance or anyone else’s insurance rates is pretty much the last thing on my mind when I am flying. There are people out there with tons more experience than I will ever have that have landed gear up, so I know it can happen to me. Two months ago I passed 500hrs total time. I know that makes me ripe for a big mistake that could cost someone their life.

If I ever do land gear up someone else’s insurance rates ticking up will never cross my mind till someone brings it up in a Mooney Space thread. I think if you ask anyone that has had an accident in their plane bringing that up probably erks them. There are so many more things out there in aviation more important than your insurance rates.

That being said I would love for no one to ever land gear up. But not because it will help my insurance rates.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mooneymite]

Technology is the answer.  Not checklists, not Gumps, not co-pilots.  Technology. 

EGPWS solved the issue for the airlines and biz jets and it can fix the problem for us.

Garmin could develop software that would sound an alarm anytime a descending aircraft came closer than 200' of the airport elevation with the gear not down.   Not EGPWS, but better than GUMPS.

[jlunseth]

I already have that.  Icarus SAM. It can be a pain though, it is always talking when the controller wants your attention. 

[kortopates]

4 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

Putting the gear down 6 miles out may work well at small fields but flying into class B’s and busy class C’s at 120 mph is going to get you jn a very long hold. 
 

-Robert 

That's purely a vintage model limitation. My K model VloExtend is 140 kts but my Vle is 165 (max gear extended speed). But in truth I slow to 120 kts before extending simply to be easy on my gear (since I do all the work on it) don't go higher than 120 kts with the gear extended which is plenty fast enough in the SOCAL airspace I operate in.

[bradp]

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to glide to a runway six miles out with gear down.  The distance from the field has little to do with whether the pilot is an adherent to the checklist manifesto, knows how to recognize distractions,  minimize risk associated with distraction, and whether the pilot adheres to an SOP for putting the gear down at the same point every time (abeam touchdown or gear down upon descending from pattern alt / 3 mile final for straight in or base turns, dot below glide slope intercept for an instrument approach) and verifying that it is in fact, down.  Even though I think 6 miles is excessive, the poster has an SOP that works,  and that’s great. 
 

Tactile input goes a long way.  There are some vehicles that buzz your seat to get your attention for an impending need to brake, etc.  My SOP is that if something becomes non normal (say kid screaming in the back seat or I’m practicing a power off 180), I put my hand on the gear selector and don’t remove it until the gear is selected down.   I also will not put out approach flaps until gear is selected down by SOP.  Each time I put my hand in a weird position on the gear selector it is a reminder that I am in a non normal environment and don’t forget to put the darned gear down.  Then the verification and checklist items are just the same. 
 

The key is flying like the 121/135 guys. They don’t forget their gear nearly as often as the 91 guys.  Even the SP 135 guys don’t gear up as often.  It the same lever. The only difference is the level of discipline and adherence to SOPs for the human attached to the other end of that lever. 

[jlunseth]

32 minutes ago, kortopates said:

That's purely a vintage model limitation. My K model VloExtend is 140 kts but my Vle is 165 (max gear extended speed). But in truth I slow to 120 kts before extending simply to be easy on my gear (since I do all the work on it) don't go higher than 120 kts with the gear extended which is plenty fast enough in the SOCAL airspace I operate in.

My Vle and Vlo are the same and lower than yours at 132 kts., but I fly the inbound just exactly as you do. 120 is plenty of speed.

[MooneyMitch]

8 hours ago, steingar said:

Insurance could easily make me abandon my Mooney, though I certainly don't want to.  Who knows, maybe by the time I'm 70 I'll want to slow down.  More likely I'll want to speed up, knowing i have less time left.

Life is like a roll of toilet paper....................the closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes ! 

[jlunseth]

19 minutes ago, bradp said:

The key is flying like the 121/135 guys. They don’t forget their gear nearly as often as the 91 guys.  Even the SP 135 guys don’t gear up as often.  It the same lever. The only difference is the level of discipline and adherence to SOPs for the human attached to the other end of that lever. 

There are two of them. One guy on the radio, checklists and monitoring the pilot flying while the other flies.  And if you take notice next time you fly commercial, they drop the gear well out from the airport, not in the pattern.

[Andy95W]

We drop it when it needs to be dropped to manage the energy on the arrival.  Normally it's put down a few miles out on final because we fly an ILS whenever possible.  The SOP for my company is on descent at 2000' AGL in order to not waste fuel.  That's about a 5 mile final.  If we're flying a visual traffic pattern, then it's usually on downwind.

I would never fault anyone for where they decide it's best to lower the gear as long as they're consistent about it.  But most working, commercial pilots are taught to lower the gear at midfield downwind.

[bradp]

29 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

There are two of them. One guy on the radio, checklists and monitoring the pilot flying while the other flies.  And if you take notice next time you fly commercial, they drop the gear well out from the airport, not in the pattern.

Single pilot 135 also does better than 91 for gear up landings.  There’s only one of them.  They adhere to SOP and checklist.  

The 121 guys drop their gear based on a profile.  There are enough of them on MS to fill in the details but it is approximately at my house on the ILS to 35. I live at the outer marker.  They drop just before glidelope intercept just like we do when flying an instrument approach.   That’s an SOP.  
 

The navy guys fly Touch and Go patterns in the  737 here and drop the gear on downwind just like we do.  The profile for the 737 is roughly like the picture attached.  That’s an SOP. 
 

 

[gsxrpilot]

6 hours ago, M20F-1968 said:

The gear warning is a male voice for gear down for landing, and a repeating female voice saying Gear, Gear... for gear not down.

That voice sure sounds like Sam Elliott saying the gear is down for landing. 

[carusoam]

Watch the video of two pilots landing GU... with the annoying sound maker in the background...

It’s pretty clear that the sound isn’t being recognized for what it is...

 

I’m with Gus... some technology from the new millennium can do a better job than two beepers...

 

Let the insurance company give you a discount for installing a device that screams ‘Gear up’ a couple times and ‘go around’ as a final warning...

Select the language of your preference...

In the meantime... keep discussing what works for you...

As part of my final approach... I want to see two things before committing to landing...

1) A wind sock.

2) A green light on my instrument panel...

 

Distraction is a terrible thing... if you haven’t seen a windsock since you took off, know that it has probably turned 180°, and you are in for an interesting landing on what appears to be a really short field this time...

Wait until you start having memory challenges...  those three GUMPs checks become even more important...

Continue to eat well and exercise... to help put off the getting old part...

 best regards,

-a-

[midlifeflyer]

6 hours ago, carusoam said:

Watch the video of two pilots landing GU... with the annoying sound maker in the background...

It’s pretty clear that the sound isn’t being recognized for what it is...

That is, sadly, a training issue. We managed to have learned how to ignore warnings.  It has plenty of sources, from systems which produce too many of them (yes, dammit, I know the pitot heat is off. It's f'in 90 degrees and CAVU, and yes, I know I have entered the Class D I am landing at!) to (flame suit on) old-style slow flight which considers hearing a warning continuously for an extended period without correcting the reason as the height of good airmanship.

i do some transition training with G1000 and cringe at the way the yellow warnings are regularly ignored. 

 

[joegoersch]

I was thinking that basic "power, performance" in the pattern would solve the problem, e.g. 2000 RPM, 17 inches MP--expect 90kts.  When you see 120 knots you know something is wrong.  but as others have pointed out, distraction or a change in routine is often what gets you.  This would not have helped me when I flew into Logan in my M20J it was asked to keep up 165 knots on final !

I think it would be very easy to make an app, or an addition to any of the flying apps, which remind you to put your gear down when you go to within  400 ft (GPS altitude, it shouldn't matter if it's off by a hundred feet or so) above pattern altitude within 4 miles of your destination.  However, this would not be hooked into the gear system.  So potentially it would sound every time and be ignored.  Alternatively, there could be a "gear down" button on the app that you would push when you put your landing gear down and pushing that button could be part of your standard check.  Pushing that button would then turn off the warning for that flight.

This is not an optimal solution, but it is a $5 help (maybe).

Thoughts ?

 

[Ibra]

The earlier the better as things do get hectic bellow 2000ft agl with barely enough mental capacity to keep height/speed under control let alone configuration

Warning devices are not much of use as brains/ears stop working bellow 500ft under stress/distraction, but the eyes are highly reliable in that situation

I suggest writing "GEAR UP" on top of runway numbers? windshield screen? or marked on the ASI arc/tape?

A cheap solution for us who can't afford a 1m$ HUD