Purchasing an aircraft which has had a gear up landing

bajadrifter said:
In my opinion, a major problem with buying an airplane with a history of a gear-up landing is the increased difficulty of resale. Many buyers won't consider the airplane despite the best repair work.

I once bought a 1974 C172 that had a completely new empennage installed after a another plane taxied into it and the prop chopped it up. The repairs were unnoticeable and the plane flew perfectly.

When it came time to sell it, I ran up against folks that couldn't get past the damage history.

Damage history adds uncertainty and this has a real impact on market value.
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that's hardly the same thing. I'd venture to say that no other 172 on the market the same time as yours had been sawed in half by a prop. OTOH if you exclude every retractable that has been on its belly you are going to be shopping for a long, long time.
 
JHW said:
that's hardly the same thing. I'd venture to say that no other 172 on the market the same time as yours had been sawed in half by a prop. OTOH if you exclude every retractable that has been on its belly you are going to be shopping for a long, long time.
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One of my friends has been searching for an 84+ A36 with complete logs and no damage history. Funny enough, he's having a hard time finding any that aren't brand new.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
One of my friends has been searching for an 84+ A36 with complete logs and no damage history. Funny enough, he's having a hard time finding any that aren't brand new.
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there is no such thing as an airplane with no damage history. The only categories of damage history are disclosed and undisclosed. as an example, my travel air has never been on its belly but it's had a bird strike and a rudder reskinned from hangar rash. Every plane has something.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
From a training side, one should routinely be reminded what the gear horn sounds like, and have the trained reaction to shove the throttle(s) forward when that happens. I think typically what happens is people get distracted.
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Certain types of training cause the horn to blow at altitude, and people start ignoring it, too. Once you teach yourself to ignore it and not make a call out that it's acknowledged, you're headed down the path...
 
Which maneuvers cause such a situation?

denverpilot said:
Certain types of training cause the horn to blow at altitude, and people start ignoring it, too. Once you teach yourself to ignore it and not make a call out that it's acknowledged, you're headed down the path...
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wabower said:
Which maneuvers cause such a situation?
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Engine out drills. It can actually be a bit dangerous. What happens is, you simulate an engine failure at altitude by pulling the throttle closed. The gear warning horn goes off and you have to live with it. Now, best glide requires you keep the gear up and there is no way to defeat the horn, so it goes on and on. Your brain gets used to it pretty quickly because you are so focused on other things. If the intention is to do a landing on the runway, by the time you get there, it can be easy to forget the gear and the horn means nothing to you.
 
Which circuit breaker controls the horn?

Dav8or said:
Engine out drills. It can actually be a bit dangerous. What happens is, you simulate an engine failure at altitude by pulling the throttle closed. The gear warning horn goes off and you have to live with it. Now, best glide requires you keep the gear up and there is no way to defeat the horn, so it goes on and on. Your brain gets used to it pretty quickly because you are so focused on other things. If the intention is to do a landing on the runway, by the time you get there, it can be easy to forget the gear and the horn means nothing to you.
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flyingron said:
Many Navions have been geared up at one point (either because the pilot forgot to lower the gear or because the engine was cranked with the handle in the UP position... no squat switch).
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That's North American for ya. No protection in the B-25 either. Pull the gear lever on the ground and she's on her belly.
 
Which way do you want it? Gotta be smarter than what you're working with one way or the other.



Fearless Tower said:
Ah yes, and then someone forgets to put it back in and the horn doesn't sound when you need it to.
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wabower said:
No it's not.
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I imagine that you have certainly reviewed more logbooks during pre-buys than I have, but I can honestly say that I personally know a lot more retracts that have never been on their belly than those that have.
 
A surprising number have skidded rather than rolled part-way to the MX hangar, but a high percentage of them have been properly repaired, updated, spiffed, polished and loved-on for many years since.

They will show up in your search simply because there's no way to exclude them, and you're going to find many of them to be quite attractive. The choices are going to be more difficult than you might think, partly because you're going to like some of the sliders and then start analyzing zackly why they aren't worthy of consideration.

I ran a Bo-210 search (he liked both) for my back-fence neighbor a few years ago and couldn't help noticing the percentage that had scraped off a few parts at one time or another. He bought an A-36 with no damage because it had weepers, but a couple others (one with A/C) with gear-up history would have been equally good (and in my mind for TX owner) choices.

Fearless Tower said:
I imagine that you have certainly reviewed more logbooks during pre-buys than I have, but I can honestly say that I personally know a lot more retracts that have never been on their belly than those that have.
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wabower said:
A surprising number have skidded rather than rolled part-way to the MX hangar, but a high percentage of them have been properly repaired, updated, spiffed, polished and loved-on for many years since.

They will show up in your search simply because there's no way to exclude them, and you're going to find many of them to be quite attractive. The choices are going to be more difficult than you might think, partly because you're going to like some of the sliders and then start analyzing zackly why they aren't worthy of consideration.

I ran a Bo-210 search (he liked both) for my back-fence neighbor a few years ago and couldn't help noticing the percentage that had scraped off a few parts at one time or another. He bought an A-36 with no damage because it had weepers, but a couple others (one with A/C) with gear-up history would have been equally good (and in my mind for TX owner) choices.
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I agree that gear up history is not a reason in itself to exclude an aircraft from consideration, I was just taking exception to the comment that it was extremely difficult to find an airplane that didn't have a gear up. Kind of like the oft-heard comment that there are pilots who have landed gear up and those who will.


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Estimate the number of aircraft produced each year and the number of gear-ups each year. Include in your study the fact that relatively few retracs have been built during the past 25 years.

Fearless Tower said:
I agree that gear up history is not a reason in itself to exclude an aircraft from consideration, I was just taking exception to the comment that it was extremely difficult to find an airplane that didn't have a gear up. Kind of like the oft-heard comment that there are pilots who have landed gear up and those who will.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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denverpilot said:
Certain types of training cause the horn to blow at altitude, and people start ignoring it, too. Once you teach yourself to ignore it and not make a call out that it's acknowledged, you're headed down the path...
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Sounds like they're doing training wrong.
 
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