Gear Up Landing Right in Front of Me

Nate asked: Curiosity question. Is the collision alarm a high-low continuous?

Ya know Nate, I'm embarrassed to admit it but...I don't remember. Or perhaps I'm a good enough controller that I rarely hear it at all. :) It very well could be a high low continuous. That alarm goes off so much in someone else's airspace that we glance at the flashing red CA's and then move on.

Note: unlike the controllers in that really crappy ATC movie, Pushing Tin, we don't all gather around to see who is about to collide.
 
bluesideup said:
Hi.
I am sure this is not new, but there are only two kinds of pilots that fly RGs, the ones that landed with the gear up, or Will land with a gear up. Just accept it, or stay away from RGs.
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I heard it as, those who have, those who will, and those who will again.....
 
drotto said:
It was being blamed for causing stalls at low speed and altitude because of the gear extending when the pilot was not expecting it. The FAA judged that a gear up landing was better than a base to final turn stall and spin, so they recommended the system be disabled.
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The story I was told was that an Arrow was picking up ice, the pitot tube iced over and the gear extended. Because of the ice accumulation, the aircraft stalled and crashed. Lawsuit follows and then Piper says the auto extension feature has to be disabled.

Why the pilot flew into icing conditions, not turn on the pitot heat or disable the auto gear extension is not the cause is beyond me.

Don't know if it's true. But it certainly sounds like the way things go. :mad:
 
Timbeck2 said:
Nate asked: Curiosity question. Is the collision alarm a high-low continuous?

Ya know Nate, I'm embarrassed to admit it but...I don't remember. Or perhaps I'm a good enough controller that I rarely hear it at all. :) It very well could be a high low continuous. That alarm goes off so much in someone else's airspace that we glance at the flashing red CA's and then move on.

Note: unlike the controllers in that really crappy ATC movie, Pushing Tin, we don't all gather around to see who is about to collide.
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I get it. Just wondered if it was something you’d know off the top of your head. It’s really loud and obvious from the other side of the radio.

With busy parallel runways I suspect the controllers trigger it all the time at our airport, unless it’s smart enough not to freak out when a Cessna on base is pointed at the bizjet on final for the parallel.

When they do their next “fireside chat” with the controllers I’ll ask. That’s a really good presentation and I always try to go to that particular safety seminar. It’s good to know what the controllers are dealing with in their world at our airport.

I’m just stunned when I manage to find out how many PDs are issued at our airport for aircraft taxiing onto runways or on to taxiways without clearances. They’ve changed that procedure to have marked and mandatory run-up areas, the ground sequencing to the hold line, wig-wag lights at all the runway entrances now, and all sorts of things to try to stop that behavior, and it STILL happens a lot. Pilots just manage to get completely distracted.
 
If you don't have an answer by Sunday I'll tell you then. I work Sunday afternoon and yes you are correct, parallel runways trigger it all the time.
 
Pushing Tin rocks!:D Saw it opening night with half my facility. Only good part was a brief nude scene with Angelina Jolie. Not worth the movie ticket.
 
mscard88 said:
@Timbeck2

At FAA towers (& contract towers) don't say that Tim unless it's a military plane. Only us old Air Force controllers are required to. Even copters. Told a Huey ck wheels down, cleared to land. He can back 'down n welded'. Told him we're required to say it for all military aircraft. Maybe it's changed since I controlled.
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I was coming back to San Jose (KSJC) one evening, and the tower told me to check gear down. I responded “three green, gear down and locked”, all the while thinking to myself “that’s funny, they’ve never done that before, and it’s dark out anyway, they can’t even see my gear.” As I was nearing touchdown, I was thinking “hmmm, the runway looks a bit darker than unsual, wonder why?”

Yep, my landing lights were off. I usually fly all the time with the landing and taxi lights on in an effort to make myself more visible to others, but I’d been in some IMC earlier, and the glare from the reflected lights was annoying, so I turned them off. I guess tower is used to all the airliner traffic which, I’m guessing, has the landing lights activate whenever the gear is down. Since my landing lights weren’t on, I’m thinking that maybe they assumed the gear wasn’t down either.




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flyingron said:
I can't tell you the number of times I've been told to check gear down in a 172 at a mixed use field.
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Agreed. On my student pilot long XC, in a 172, I got that at Alpena. (Hadn't yet heard about "down and welded" though, or I would have said that.)
 
Dumb newbie bookflyer question: are the gear warning and stall warning horns piped through the audio system, or can they possibly be excluded by ANR headsets?
 
BillW said:
Dumb newbie bookflyer question: are the gear warning and stall warning horns piped through the audio system, or can they possibly be excluded by ANR headsets?
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They are not piped through the audio systems on most GA aircraft. Maybe some of the newer aircraft are set up that way, but they would be small in number.
 
GRG55 said:
They are not piped through the audio systems on most GA aircraft. Maybe some of the newer aircraft are set up that way, but they would be small in number.
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That's kinda what I thought. My GA pax experience predates the use of headsets for all aboard, and I recall hearing a stall horn a couple of times. Maybe in a Cirrus they're piped through the audio. ;) But I guess it would be surprising in your average older GA plane. So, the question then becomes, is it possible the pilot in question here failed to hear the gear warning due to an ANR headset? ANR, in my limited experience, is good at cancelling constant sounds.
 
Today I flew a Cardinal RG for the first time in years. Managed to get the gear down at the appropriate times. Of course, it helps that those things are really hard to get slowed to pattern speed if you don't put the gear down.
 
BillW said:
Dumb newbie bookflyer question: are the gear warning and stall warning horns piped through the audio system, or can they possibly be excluded by ANR headsets?
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Most used separate tiny speakers call sonalerts I believe.
 
rt4388 said:
Agreed. Unfortunately, I just didn't think to tell this guy. I just assumed he knew what was going on and didn't really process that he might not be hearing the horn.
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I did not mean to crticise your efforts here and I appreciate you sharing the story. In the end, it's not your job to save this guy from his own mistake.
 
bluesideup said:
Hi.
I am sure this is not new, but there are only two kinds of pilots that fly RGs, the ones that landed with the gear up, or Will land with a gear up. Just accept it, or stay away from RGs.
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Sure, since we're dragging out old tropes, I'll add- "There are only two kinds of tailwheel pilots. Those that have ground looped and those that will." oh, and maybe- "There are only two kinds of Skylane pilots. Those that have had a prop strike and those that will." I'm sure there's more, but that's all I could think of at the moment. Come on everybody let's come up with more "common wisdom". It'll be fun!
 
James331 said:
Might have been a simulated engine failure 180, drop the gear at the last minute type thing?

Seems those types of maneuvers are where it's easier to make a mistake.
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That is a real concern when training, or practicing in a retractable gear plane. Simulating an emergency can actually turn into one. The gear horn is on for so long during the glide, that one can tune it out and become fixated on the landing. You spend so much time maneuvering the plane to a nice short final that you skip ahead and start to just focus on a nice power off landing and continue to ignore the horn. The conundrum is, if you practice your engine out with the gear down for safety, it doesn't have anywhere near the same glide ratio and isn't as helpful for training.
 
BillW said:
That's kinda what I thought. My GA pax experience predates the use of headsets for all aboard, and I recall hearing a stall horn a couple of times. Maybe in a Cirrus they're piped through the audio. ;) But I guess it would be surprising in your average older GA plane. So, the question then becomes, is it possible the pilot in question here failed to hear the gear warning due to an ANR headset? ANR, in my limited experience, is good at cancelling constant sounds.
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My airplane does not route the gear warning, or stall warning through the headsets. It just uses the little piezo horns under the panel. I wear ANR headsets. At least in my Mooney, I can hear these horns just fine, the headset cannot cut them out.
 
sourdough44 said:
View attachment 61412

Looks like ownership changed hands recently.
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Neat. You can work the interwebby thing! You should have posted his Facebook picture and a picture of the front of his house too so we can all go there and throw rocks at him and call him the worst aviator ever.

IMO, I think it sucks that the FAA puts all this info out there for anybody to see.
 
GRG55 said:
They are not piped through the audio systems on most GA aircraft. Maybe some of the newer aircraft are set up that way, but they would be small in number.
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Most GA gear horns are simply wired to a cockpit speaker, but you can have it wired to the audio panel.

The previous owner did that on my Beech 18. The gear horn is wired to the Garmin audio panel. It’s friggin’ loud!
 
How hard it is to change the warning horn to something like “check gear” ?


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WannFly said:
How hard it is to change the warning horn to something like “check gear” ?


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In a certified airplane....probably impossible.

But I bet the new Cirrus jet probably says something like that.
 
Fearless Tower said:
In a certified airplane....probably impossible.

But I bet the new Cirrus jet probably says something like that.
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It’s a small gizmo, most avionics these days call out things like traffic 2 O clock etc, doesn’t even have to be TSO. I wonder why some company won’t make something like that, may be people will tune that out too... donno .


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I had an amphib that said "Gear is down for landing on pavement" in a guys voice.
And "Gear is up for landing on water" in a woman's voice.
And yes, you can turn them off or ignore them.
I had a close call, but caught the gear being up for an airport landing on final.
Gear up on pavement does little damage.
Gear down on water is a bad flip.
Always check gear on final.
 
WannFly said:
It’s not even that expensive. Wiring and installation may up this quite a bit, but still.


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I think the total bill was about $900 once it was installed. The Aspen synthetic vision STC requires an aural warning so I had the choice of a buzzer or the AV-17. No doubt it could have been cheaper had I shopped around. At the time convenience far outweighed a couple hundred dollars in shop time.
 
My arrow has the auto-extender enabled. I don't like it, but I'm too lazy to do anything about it. And since it doesn't fall into the only two categories I would be willing to sink upgrade money into the airplane (powerplant increase, or fuel tank increase..because I legally can't, otherwise it would have been done already in 2014..yai part 23 rewrite bait and switch POS....), I'm also not $$$ inclined to change it.

All in all not a bad system in landing operation, but it does introduce a nasty mode on takeoff that is not desirable in the least, which is why most people disable it. If the system had been disabled by the previous owner I certainly wouldn't have missed it.
 
Clark1961 said:
I think the total bill was about $900 once it was installed. The Aspen synthetic vision STC requires an aural warning so I had the choice of a buzzer or the AV-17. No doubt it could have been cheaper had I shopped around. At the time convenience far outweighed a couple hundred dollars in shop time.
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Looks like it only interfaces with other EI products, I was hoping it would integrate with JPI as well, guess not


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WannFly said:
Looks like it only interfaces with other EI products, I was hoping it would integrate with JPI as well, guess not


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It certainly interfaces with the Aspen and Garmin 430W. Dunno 'bout other products. EI tech/sales support is usually pretty good if you want to call them.
 
That's one of the things I've always found curious about gear up landings. In my 182-RG and in my Velocity, if the gear isn't down before turning base (or by the FAF on an IAP) I'll be going way too fast over the numbers to even think about landing without a 10,000' runway.

I would think that would be a pretty good indication of something not right.
 
mscard88 said:
@SixPapaCharlie and @eman1200 pipe theirs for that stereo sound.
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That thing with the RF link from the other guy’s airplane? I believe it’s called the...

Automated Stall Sounds Holistic Overview via Legacy Ether System?

Warns you if some of those are going to fall out of the sky anywhere nearby.

Way cooler than ADS-B. Very NexGen. :)
 
donjohnston said:
That's one of the things I've always found curious about gear up landings. In my 182-RG and in my Velocity, if the gear isn't down before turning base (or by the FAF on an IAP) I'll be going way too fast over the numbers to even think about landing without a 10,000' runway.

I would think that would be a pretty good indication of something not right.
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During a normal landing pattern on a normal day, you're right, the airplane not losing altitude fast enough might clue you in, but I believe these accidents happen on the not normal day, or the not normal pattern. Distraction is the problem. In my book, a crazy busy pattern with lots of traffic at an un-towered field is the worst. Your attention goes from being all about what's going on inside the cockpit, to what's going on outside the cockpit. If you are afraid of a collision, flying the airplane becomes secondary unfortunately.

Any retractable gear airplane can be slowed to landing speed. Pull power, put in flaps and pitch up. It's all about distraction and your brain not processing all the information right in the minutes prior to landing.
 
I was leaving Destin about 15 years, waiting for a 210 to land before I departed. I look up and his gear isn’t down and he’s about 1/2 out. I called him and went around. He thanked me and I departed while he was returning to land. If I hadn’t said anything, the runway would have been blocked for an hour or more! But, I’d want someone to do the same for me.
 
N747JB said:
I was leaving Destin about 15 years, waiting for a 210 to land before I departed. I look up and his gear isn’t down and he’s about 1/2 out. I called him and went around. He thanked me and I departed while he was returning to land. If I hadn’t said anything, the runway would have been blocked for an hour or more! But, I’d want someone to do the same for me.
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I did the same thing for a guy in a king air 200 one day. It’s a natural thing when you’re chilling on the taxiway holding short. Our op was inflight. That’s a different situation completely.
 
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