Down and locked mmmm maybe not.

Read the thread, understand the thread, then post in the thread.

(but I'm not saying that I always do...i.e. I'm duckin' and runnin' and bobbin' and weavin') ;)
 
denverpilot said:
Only ever seen one M18, but man that looked like it'd be interesting to fly.
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All this talk about manually operated gear and then the M18 so a little story.

The airport where I hung out had a mechanic who acquired an M18 for his own project. He lovingly rebuilt this bird in a garage of a house down the street from the airport. I don't remember how long it took but it was many months possibly a year or two. I helped him a bit and watched the metamorphosis from parts to a beautiful finished product.

Shortly after he started flying his M18 from our grass airport he landed with the gear up. "Eddie, how did you do that?". He said, "I was having trouble seeing past the windshield wiper".

For those of you who know the M18 you understand this response. For those who don't, this M18 did not have an electrical system so the gear-up warning mechanism was a vacuum operated windshield wiper motor behind the panel connected to a short arm with a red disc on the end of the arm and this waved back and forth when the throttle was retarded with the gear up.

I wasn't at the airport at the time of the gear-up landing so I don't know how they got the plane back on its wheels. I imagine that a few guys just picked it up while Eddie reached inside and extended the gear. :)
 
Bruce, that's hilarious.

I always have wondered what it's like to get a "checkout" in any single-seater... have a long heart to heart with a CFI who has a bunch of time in type, study and take good notes, and you're on your own. Must be interesting.

I wonder how insurance companies handle that too.
 
Nobody's suggested that maybe he tried to apply more flaps to pop it off the ground, and grabbed the wrong thing...
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Nobody's suggested that maybe he tried to apply more flaps to pop it off the ground, and grabbed the wrong thing...
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You ever been in a Mooney with a Johnson bar gear? Gear and flaps are two TOTALLY different things. These are NOT electric micro switches that could possibly get confused.
 
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