Been thinking

[N201MKTurbo]

35 minutes ago, Will.iam said:

Well there is all that plus a checklist on the ecam display that should be all green. If gear not down then that one is in blue. At 800ft there is a red arrow by the gear lever that lights up. And eventually egpws calls out too low gear repeatedly. If the flaps are not in landing flap position it also says too low flaps. There was a crew that was so task saturated and tunnel vision focused as well as going around is so rarely done that a crew did land with flaps at 2 instead of 3 or full so they ignored or didn’t hear the too low flaps warning or inhibited it (doubtful) and landed anyways.   Sometimes the brain just doesn’t comprehend what is really going on  or it’s so far behind the jet that things happen before you are ready for it. Learning to recognize you are behind and slow things down when overwhelmed is vital to operating a plane safely. 

I was in a 767 after a trip across the Atlantic landing in Manchester UK. They had a hydraulic failure and decided to land with no flaps. It seemed like a non event. If anything the touchdown seemed smoother than normal. The reversers ran longer and harder than usual, but there was plenty of runway left when we got stopped.

[0TreeLemur]

12 hours ago, Skates97 said:

I did something similar to what you are suggesting for my fuel pump. I put an amber LED in the panel next to the green/red gear down/up lights. If the electric pump is on the amber light is on. It is a reminder when taking off that the pump is on and later in cruise helps me remember to turn it off.

Wow Rich, what synchronicity.  I did exactly the same thing in our C also amber colored, because the switch is hidden behind my left hand on the yoke so I was always forgetting to turn it off. 

My co-pilot always reminds me to switch it on or off when she's with me.   It got to the point where I started to not enjoy when she caught me not switching it on/off before she asked me "how 'bout that pump?"

In our "new" J, I synchronize flaps with pump.   Flaps down, pump on.  Flaps up, pump off.

[A64Pilot]

Can one of you smart guys tell me where the wire that supplies power to the gear warning horn is located, as in where can I tie into it?

I don’t know the wiring logic, by that I mean power I assume also goes through the gear switch so that gear down, no warning, but gear up and throttle switch activated, then there is a warning, takes both switches, so I assume I need to tie into the last switch

Can I pick the power off of a gear switch terminal? Or the throttle switch terminal? Gear switch would be best as in easiest if possible.

 

[toto]

6 hours ago, MooneyMitch said:

It’s probably been discussed previously, but what do airlines do to avoid gear ups?  Check list, 2 pilots checking, visual and audible indicators, and ? 
 

... and fly every day

[GeeBee]

18 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I was in a 767 after a trip across the Atlantic landing in Manchester UK. They had a hydraulic failure and decided to land with no flaps. It seemed like a non event. If anything the touchdown seemed smoother than normal. The reversers ran longer and harder than usual, but there was plenty of runway left when we got stopped.

Had to be something different than just hydraulic failure because  the flaps can deployed electrically if the hydraulics fail. The flaps and landing gear come off the center system hydraulics. The flaps are actually mechanically driven by shafts and jack screws by a single hydraulic motor which has an electric motor back up (which is very sloooow). More likely it was a flap asymmetry trip.

[N201MKTurbo]

20 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

Had to be something different than just hydraulic failure because  the flaps can deployed electrically if the hydraulics fail. The flaps and landing gear come off the center system hydraulics. The flaps are actually mechanically driven by shafts and jack screws by a single hydraulic motor which has an electric motor back up (which is very sloooow). More likely it was a flap asymmetry trip.

I asked the captain about that on the way out the door. He said it was company policy that if the plane was landable that they wouldn’t use the backup system because it may make it worse. He announced over the PA that they were having a hydraulic problem as we were flying around in circles for about 20 minutes before landing.

[GeeBee]

Just now, N201MKTurbo said:

I asked the captain about that on the way out the door. He said it was company policy that if the plane was landable that they wouldn’t use the backup system because it may make it worse. He announced over the PA that they were having a hydraulic problem as we were flying around in circles for about 20 minutes before landing.

The "Flap Asymmetry" vs "Jammed Flaps" checklist on the 767 can often be confused if the crew does not carefully and properly use the checklist to diagnose what is going on so I get that the company tells them to "land with what you got" rather than risk further damage by running the wrong checklist. The sad thing is most flap problems on the 767 can be fixed fixed by activating the alternate flap system then turning it off and it usually straightens out, but the FAA made crews stop doing that as it was not "Boeing Approved".

I had an asymmetry trip going in to Paris DeGaulle and as luck would have it, I had the FAA on board. I went into holding, and we started the checklist. The moment the F/O pressed the alternate flap with, the message cleared. We turned the switch off and deployed the flaps normally. After landing the FAA guy said, "You're really not supposed to do that". I reached in my bag, pulled out the bulletin and said, "No, it says we are not permitted to cycle the switch on, then off to clear the warning. The warning went away when I turn the switch on, we did not complete the cycle to off." He smiled and said, "Yep, you're right!"

[A64Pilot]

So does anyone have a circuit diagram/ schematic for the landing gear warning system?

I looked in the copy of the service manual I have and couldn’t find any schematics.

1981 J model serial #24-1168

Trying to determine the logic, apparently if I understand it the throttle position switch has to be either open or closed and the landing gear switch in the up position, if those two conditions are met then the alarm will sound. 

Either power or ground goes through both switches and then to the alarm, I’m trying to find out which switch is second in line and whether or not it’s power or ground that’s switched. If I know that then it’s easy to connect an LED to the proper switch terminal so that an LED will illuminate with the alarm. LED power draw is so low that I don’t think a relay is necessary and if ground is switched like I hope then it not necessary

Edited June 27, 2023 by A64Pilot

[N201MKTurbo]

10 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

So does anyone have a circuit diagram/ schematic for the landing gear warning system?

I looked in the copy of the service manual I have and couldn’t find any schematics.

1981 J model serial #24-1168

Trying to determine the logic, apparently if I understand it the throttle position switch has to be either open or closed and the landing gear switch in the up position, if those two conditions are met then the alarm will sound. 

Either power or ground goes through both switches and then to the alarm, I’m trying to find out which switch is second in line and whether or not it’s power or ground that’s switched. If I know that then it’s easy to connect an LED to the proper switch terminal so that an LED will illuminate with the alarm. LED power draw is so low that I don’t think a relay is necessary and if ground is switched like I hope then it not necessary

I have all the J wiring diagrams. we have been doing some remodeling and all my documentation is in piles right now, I'll try to dig them up.

[A64Pilot]

27 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I have all the J wiring diagrams. we have been doing some remodeling and all my documentation is in piles right now, I'll try to dig them up.

I’d appreciate that 

Where did you get them?

Edited June 27, 2023 by A64Pilot

[hammdo]

I’m covered:

Latest LHS wired to gear up, factory gear warning, and these babies:

 

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

I’d appreciate that 

Where did you get them?

I got them from another Mooney Spacer who thought I would be a good steward of them. Not sure where he got them. I think he ordered them from mooney. They are kind of poor copies on E sized. Kind of hard to scan and post.

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, hammdo said:

I’m covered:

Latest LHS wired to gear up, factory gear warning, and these babies:

 

I understand, just I think I can get 90% of the coverage with a couple percent of the cost, without an STC as well, if I wanted voice, that’s not hard either just run it into the music portion of the intercom, but I think I’ll forgo voice.

‘It’s all in the concept stage at this point

I already have a green gear down light

[A64Pilot]

8 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I got them from another Mooney Spacer who thought I would be a good steward of them. Not sure where he got them. I think he ordered them from mooney. They are kind of poor copies on E sized. Kind of hard to scan and post.

I know it’s asking a lot, but I’d gladly pay for Kinko’s or similar to copy and ship. Website says they will copy and Fedex.

‘I’ll owe you a beer, or if you ever come down to Disney world etc a place to say and put your airplane

[N201MKTurbo]

I’ll make you a copy and send it. You will go crazy trying to follow the lines in the pics. MP your address.

[A64Pilot]

Thanks, PM or whatever it’s called sent, if I mucked it up let me know

[exM20K]

1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I got them from another Mooney Spacer who thought I would be a good steward of them. Not sure where he got them. I think he ordered them from mooney. They are kind of poor copies on E sized. Kind of hard to scan and post.

I had a set of drawings for my 231 that I gave to the buyer.  They came from Essco  https://www.esscoaircraft.com/collections/mooney

 

[Pinecone]

On 6/26/2023 at 8:53 AM, A64Pilot said:

Decades ago as a kid I had an idea, I think brake lights ought to flash, and the harder your on the brakes the faster they ought to flash, give the guy following an idea just how hard the car ahead of them is on the brakes.

There are aftermarket kits to do this.

Maybe even one OEM that does so, but it is a good idea.

The military went to aural voice warnings many years ago, as the pilots pay attention to the,  Especially with a sexy female voice.  The story was, the voice they used (and many pilots fell in love with) belonged to an 80 year old woman.  But it seems there were several women who did voice alerts.

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/sexy-sally-aircraft-voice-based-warning-systems-history.html?chrome=1&A1c=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system

 

[A64Pilot]

Army did initially use the female voice, then I guess it was in the great purge of male “things” in Army aviation in the 80’s I think? Renaming cockpit to crew compartment and TIT to TGT ad nauseum, the female voice was dropped because it was sexist and replaced with a robotic voice, one that was difficult to understand, it had no inflection and you just couldn’t understand it half the time.

One of the test things we had was a couple of aircraft that had the female voice coupled to the radar altimeter and she would come on and say “check altitude” at the adjustable alarm height. Seemed great, but it drove you nuts on an approach to a confined area like the FAARP because you couldn’t spare a hand to turn the thing off so it kept repeating check altitude over and over, so we very quickly turned the thing off before flight. The current warning flashed the altitude display in our flight symbology, but there was so much stuff there it was very often not noticed

We even had voice activation in the 80’s. It was called Vic, so you could say spin two B code missiles and nothing would happen, but if you said Vic spin two B codes missiles, two B code missiles spun up. But it was not fielded, or not by 2003 when I retired anyway.

When I first got my Garmin 696 in the Maule I though the pseudo GPWS cool, ran it into my audio panel, but very soon disconnected it because the constant terrain, terrain, pull up, pull up was way beyond annoying landing at some grass strip, and it set my nerves on edge, thats a hard warning to ignore, especially as it’s not calmly spoken words.

Then the obstacle warning on ForeFlight is extremely annoying, fly by some tower and the screen is covered by the warning, you can touch the screen to turn it off, but two seconds later it’s back, obscuring the screen again

The initial Radar warning receiver the APR-39 made different types of noises and you were supposed to memorize the noise and correlate it to radar type, then the new one came out and it had the robot voice. The APR-39 was very sensitive and in a modern environment there are many radar like signals and it reported every one of them. Initially when we went down range in Bosnia we were to report any APR reports to Looking glass, some kind of AirForce asset, that lasted about two days before we were asked to no longer report contacts.

I think aural warnings and visual  are fine, but they need to be able to be overridden, too many false or nuisance alarms and you become desensitized to the things. In Bosnia most of us turned the APR-39 off, excess false alarms rendered it more than useless as it’s false alarms changed tactics.

I think the current Mooney landing gear warning is fine, but the aural for some reason is too often ignored, maybe it’s just not loud enough or maybe it should be a warbling tone like the European ambulance?

But changing the warning tone would I think be a major alteration and that’s a PIA, but in my opinion adding a light, maybe a flashing one as you have not changed the factory warning could be a minor.

I need to get off my butt and pull the glare shield, I intend to find if there is one terminal on the gear switch that makes contact and allows the warning to sound. I admit the schematic is a little overwhelming but I think I can find what I want with a test light.

On edit, At the NAAA trade show years ago I commented to the EI rep there about how sexy the voice they used was, to find out it was his Wife.

That was a little embarrassing 

Edited July 3, 2023 by A64Pilot

[C.J.]

On 6/25/2023 at 9:46 PM, A64Pilot said:

I know that’s dangerous, but during the conversation about how many gear ups there are, and obviously when we get busy doing things we turn off aural warnings. By that I mean we of course hear the gear alarm but the brain obviously ignores it. Sure a voice alarm telling you to check gear isn’t bad, but your already ignoring sounds or you would recognize that obnoxious alarm for what it is.

It would be child’s play to put a bright red LED in the instrument panel that shined in our eyes connected to the gear aural warning so that we would get a light in the face, and it’s likely that being a visual thing we would see it and recognize it for what it is, or I think I would anyway, harder to ignore a bright light than a noise, have to be bright though, not just a segment light.

As we aren’t changing any current alarm it ought to be a simple minor mod

Here is my low-tech CB method - just tape this photo on the panel (alternate with other gear up pics so you don't become too accustomed to just one photo). It works for me and supplements all my other flows, procedures, habit patterns to avoid making sparks on the runway. 

[hypertech]

Get the latest landing height system.  It doesn't yell at you to put the gear down unless you don't so you don't get habituated to it.  In fact the opposite.  If I don't get my height callouts and I do get a warning call out, its a double difference that something is wrong.