Congrats to Tristan...

J

jesse

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jesse
....for getting that little wheel up front on the 172RG to come down with the hand pump.

she must be stronger than tony.
 
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jesse said:
....for getting that little wheel up front on the 172RG to come down with the hand pump.

she must be stronger than tony.
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Congrats Tristan.

I found this photo of you and Jesse.

20060922-top-gun.jpg
 
Guess I owe you guys a story huh!

Well we were doing stop and goes in the Cessna 172RG, came back around and put the gear down, I went to turn final when my instructor and I noticed we didnt have a green light. We both went, "Oh my gosh, we dont have a green light!" So we called up tower and said we had a gear problem and requested a low fly by to see if they saw a nose gear down. They responded with "no, there is no nose gear would you like me to call the emergency trucks?" We responded with a not yet and that we'd like to go north for a while since we had 3 hours of fuel and try to recycle the gear and fix the problem. So we headed north and tried recycling the gear but again we only kept getting the mains with a red light. We got out the checklist and started going through the precedures if the gear failed to extend. This included pumping the gear handle. At first, I flew and my instructor pumped. I told her I remembered from commercial ground that it actualy takes about 32 pumps for the gear to drop so it'll take some time. She got tired and I said, "well why dont you fly and I'll pump for a while." I pumped for a while and started getting tired but there was no way I was giving up and wanted to use every once of time I had left to try. We both agreed that we weren't going to be known as the two girls who had a gear up landing. Heading back towards the airport we started talking about what we were going to do if we actualy had to land this thing which included landing as soft as possible and make sure our seatbelts were fully on and tight. About a mile from the airport, tower asked how we were doing and if we needed the emergency trucks yet. We responded that yea go ahead and call them because we're not getting this gear down yet. Two seconds after that I was pumping as hard as I could and the gear handle dropped away from my hand....there was a "THUD" and .....a green light!!! We both yelled "YES!!! Oh my gosh! We have a green light!! Then called tower up and said, "Tower cancel that we have a green light! our gear is down!" We did another low approach to comfurm that tower saw a gear which they did, so we came around and I did a soft field landing.....and the gear stayed down... We were so happy and thanked the tower. They responded that they're glad everything worked out and we told them we were too.

We both gave each other a high five for team work, keeping our cool and referring back to our training. After parking the plane we both got out and sat on the ground laughing, completely relieved that everything worked out! We both saved each other in my opinion in our own ways.... two girls have defied the odds once again!!

This was our first ever emergency landing for either one of us, I personaly think we did very well.

Jesse and my mom were the first people I called when I got on the ground. You have no idea how thankfull I am to be okay as silly as a gear up problem may sound.


Lessons learned: Check that red light! Team work is a good strategy, it really does take about 32+ pumps to get that gear down, don't ever give up, use fuel time to your advantage, checklists are there for a reason and so was your ground training.
 
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Bravo! Sometimes you put the lever down and just assume everything's fine. Glad you checked for the green lights.

You two did MUCH better than the guy who landed the Baron 58 at Wings the other day. He says he had 3 green. The results imply otherwise. Nice new Qtip props (oops, bent the wrong way), messed up flaps, skins, a real beaut of a gear-up!
 
Well, I'm glad you worked through your gear issue. No metal bent, no deductables expended, no second guessing from the learned peanut gallery (yet) and best of all.....I don't have to use the accursed "I" word. Good for you! Did you notice the BE-58 parked next to us this AM (Tris and I went flying) on the the ramp at KSWO? Dude showed up yesterday with a 300 hour old airplane and couldn't get the gear down. Yup, had to crank it down which in a Baron, or Bonanza, is an exercise in dexterity and carpal flextivity (made up a word!). I think it's your airport! Anyway, glad it worked out for ya. Important safety tip......the only time you call your Mom with anything aviation related is to tell her about the nice sunset/sunrise you saw....no emergencies/accidents/incidents....it get's 'em too spun up and they've got enough trouble as it is. Everything is beautiful all the time.......
 
No no no...John...You have it all wrong. All aviation stories should start out "There I was thinking I was about to die......"

Bravo Zulu Tristan for a job well done.
 
Funny enough my mom was telling me how proud she was of me and glad everything worked out. She was of course supprised though.
 
**** hot!

You kept your composure (and never stopped flying the aircraft), figured out what was wrong, fixed it, and got back on the ground in one piece safely. Can't ask for much better results than that!

I've had only two gear related incidents - one similar to yours, and one that's really easy to deal with - gear that won't retract at all. ;)
 
Tristar said:
We both agreed that we weren't going to be known as the two girls who had a gear up landing.
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And that right there is why women are better pilots! :yes:

Nice work Tris! I'm glad I'm flying an Arrow, the emergency extension is so much simpler. "Gee, the first switch didn't work, I'll have to use this other one..."
 
Sounds like you did a good job. Congrats!
 
hey nice work. i kinda wish that in my situation the nose gear hadnt come out. then i woulda known for sure that it was an issue with the nose gear.

speaking of i got about 5 hrs in the 182RG in the last week and the gear has come down every time :crossfingers: :D
 
Good job Tristan!

Glad you had a better taxi outcome than Tony's. Given what happened to him I know I would be hesitant to taxi after landing with a gear problem. Now if I remember right Tony never got the light to go on but you did. I may have that wrong. But if I did get it right is that what made you decide to taxi back to the ramp?
 
Tristan- nice job!

I remember practicing slow flight while waiting for someone to land in Millville with a gear problem. He had the checklists in the pax seat pouch where he couldn't reach them (Couldn't reach behind his seat). Someone coached him from the ground & he landed safely.
 
smigaldi said:
Good job Tristan!

Glad you had a better taxi outcome than Tony's. Given what happened to him I know I would be hesitant to taxi after landing with a gear problem. Now if I remember right Tony never got the light to go on but you did. I may have that wrong. But if I did get it right is that what made you decide to taxi back to the ramp?
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no light for me. nose gear was nearly extended all the way. looking in the mirror, we couldnt tell if it was actually fully extended and a wire broke or if the gear was not fully extended and we were screwed. turns out we were screwed. pumping wouldnt have helped as it was metal hitting metal to stop the nosewheel from extending all the way.
 
Tristar said:
...
I went to turn final when my instructor and I noticed we didnt have a green light. We both went, "Oh my gosh, we dont have a green light!"
...
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This is classic! :yes:

Nice job, Tris.
 
Great job, Tris. You used your noodle and saved your bacon. That's how it's supposed to work.
 
smigaldi said:
Good job Tristan!

Glad you had a better taxi outcome than Tony's. Given what happened to him I know I would be hesitant to taxi after landing with a gear problem. Now if I remember right Tony never got the light to go on but you did. I may have that wrong. But if I did get it right is that what made you decide to taxi back to the ramp?
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uhh why not taxi back? I just made sure to be really carefull and light on the nosewheel. It did fine. Its tied down and fully squawked now
 
Yea I'd actualy really like to know what it was that got stuck. I know we were doing a lot of stalls and when we recieved the red light, it was just after doing two stop and goes. So I believe during those transitions, something got trapped or snagged. Somebody told me that its possible the gear linkage got caught on something and that you should make sure the gear is straight with the pedals during retraction? And if it gets caught, to try and move the rudder peddals to de-snag it. I've also heard to pull back kinda hard and put some G's on the gear. Have you guys ever heard any of these ideas? Personaly...I like the one the manual prescribes, if that doesnt work, maybe something else. I think a hydrolic failure would be the worst case scenerio other than the gear just falling off the plane.
 
Tristar said:
uhh why not taxi back? I just made sure to be really carefull and light on the nosewheel. It did fine. Its tied down and fully squawked now
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Pretty much anytime you have a problem extending the gear there's a better chance than normal for it to collapse during or after the landing. It doesn't take much time for a mechanic to externally lock the gear down on most planes.

You were concerned about a collapse during the landing, why should that concern evaporate once you are safely on the ground. That said, I'd guess than 90+% of the pilots out there wouldn't give a second thought to taxiing after a good landing like you did, especially with three greens.

Of course, if you had landed successfully only to have the nosegear collapse during the taxi to your tiedown, it would have been blamed on the fact that the pilots were female. :)
 
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ah its not really that bad when the nosegear collapses :):)
 
Good CRM. That would have been a lot more work if you had been alone.

And I like Arrows better. Emergency extension system doesn't require any hard work by the pilot. :D
 
Nice work Tristan!

How much time would you say it took get the gear down once you started the emergency procedure?
 
Thats hard to judge really. My instructor started pumping for a little bit, we came back around and tower didnt see anything yet so we decided to head north and she started pumping again but got tired so I took over and pumped. I got tired and had to take a few breaks, then finally I just got mad and started pumping a lot, in the mean time we had turned back around towards the airport for another low pass. About a mile from the airport it finally dropped. So I'd say total, maybe about .2-.3 maybe more. It was really hard to push that pump down. I was told later thats because we were putting pressure into the mains at the same time which were already down. ....I now have a sore on my right hand, hehe but it sure coulda been a lot worse!!
 
Tristar said:
We both went, "Oh my gosh, we dont have a green light!" .......and that we'd like to go north for a while since we had 3 hours of fuel and try to recycle the gear and fix the problem. .... two girls have defied the odds once again!!
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Great job, having lots of extra gas (time) sure helps, and is a great argument for taking as much fuel with you as W/B will allow.
 
tonycondon said:
ah its not really that bad when the nosegear collapses :):)
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As long as you are not the one footing the bill for the engine inspection afterwards. I had never thought about the taxiing part after landing with a resolved gear problem. But after your event and one here at 10C I think I would just easily come to a stop and if possible and not too much of a turn get off the runway, shut down, and call for a tow.

BTW the one here at 10C was a 421, it landed and was on roll out when there was a loud pop and the gear unsafe light came on. The mechanic was in the plane when this happened as they were doing a test flight after some engine work. They shut down and inspected the gear. The nose gear linkage had come loose and part of it had actually shot out towards the gear well and busted through the metal. Had they continued to taxi it would have likely resulted in a nose gear collapse and a very expensive engine tear down and inspection.
 
Tristar said:
Yea I'd actualy really like to know what it was that got stuck. I know we were doing a lot of stalls and when we recieved the red light, it was just after doing two stop and goes. So I believe during those transitions, something got trapped or snagged. Somebody told me that its possible the gear linkage got caught on something and that you should make sure the gear is straight with the pedals during retraction? And if it gets caught, to try and move the rudder peddals to de-snag it. I've also heard to pull back kinda hard and put some G's on the gear. Have you guys ever heard any of these ideas? Personaly...I like the one the manual prescribes, if that doesnt work, maybe something else. I think a hydrolic failure would be the worst case scenerio other than the gear just falling off the plane.
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The 172RG down in Florida I had been flying has had a couple of gear up problems on the nose gear. One was the the nose gear retracted with gear turned sideways and got itself wedged into the wheel well. The other was the gear door jammed shut.
 
smigaldi said:
I know it was. Actually between these two events there is a lot to be learned about real world gear problems. You both walked away with little to minimum damage and that is a good outcome for both.
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well tristan had a little less damage than I :D but it was a good learning experience for all and Im glad that you folks took something away from it.
 
Well I just talked to my instructor and she found out what happend from the maintenance guys.

They pulled the airplane into the shop and said that what had happend was when the wheel well closed, it had overlapped wrong which prevented the nose gear from extending. The guys said they found a whole bunch of stripped metal and said when I was putting all that hydrolic pressure on the nose gear, it had torn open the wheel well like a can opener. They said it was actualy a miracle I got it to pop open. Apparently that was a leading cause in why it was so hard to extend and why it just let go and dropped when the wheel well was pushed open. The mechanics said there was nothing we could do about it to have prevented that and it was not a hydrolics problem. Apparently some of the guys at the flight school said we were just being girls and the pump isnt that hard or I shoulda checked the hydrolic fluid. First off, I check hydrolic fluid every flight and second off....I must be a pretty strong girl to "pry it open like a can opener" with torn sheet metal!

1 point for the girls, -1 or more for the cessna designers!
 
Well done Tristan, glad to see you guys were able to resolve a dicey situation! :)
 
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