Gear Up! Positive Rate! or the other way around?

Reminds me of the response to the legend:
"It is not true that you can raise the landing gear while on the ground.


You can, however, significantly lower the airframe."
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It's an old trick to raise the gear handle before you start your take off roll so that the squat switch raises the gear when the weight is off. Some pilots have learned the hard way that sometimes the plane can get a little light then settle again if you don't hold it on. Then you get to go for a belly slide at a potentially high rate of speed.
 
PittsDriver said:
It's an old trick to raise the gear handle before you start your take off roll so that the squat switch raises the gear when the weight is off. Some pilots have learned the hard way that sometimes the plane can get a little light then settle again if you don't hold it on. Then you get to go for a belly slide at a potentially high rate of speed.
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Or the squat switch doesn't work at all and the gear retract as soon as you flick the lever up. Terrible freaking idea...
 
I raised gear in Telluride. Then the runway came back up to meet me. It was a very exciting few seconds. Now i know how the Doolittle raiders felt launching off the Hornet.
 
I think that used to be fairly commonplace back in the day for fighter drivers. Something about overspeeding the gear before they had a chance to retract if it was done the good ole' wait-for-positive-rate way. Seen pictures of airplanes hitting bumps in the runway causing the airplane to get light enough, and flop back onto the runway. Maybe some of the old fast mover drivers can attest to this practice.

Edit: Actually watched the video...yep, thats what it looks like. Not pretty.
 
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flyersfan31 said:
I raised gear in Telluride. Then the runway came back up to meet me. It was a very exciting few seconds. Now i know how the Doolittle raiders felt launching off the Hornet.
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Interesting airport, Telluride... :smile:
 
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