Retractable Gear phobia

My GUMPS check:

Gear down
Undercarriage down
Make sure the gear is down
Put the gear down
Stupid
 
Anyone who thinks it absolutely can't happen to them is deluding themselves. We human beings are distractible by nature, all of us. Pickpockets make a living for a reason, as do stage magicians. Good discipline can lower the chances, but they're always greater than zero.
 
steingar said:
Anyone who thinks it absolutely can't happen to them is deluding themselves. We human beings are distractible by nature, all of us. Pickpockets make a living for a reason, as do stage magicians. Good discipline can lower the chances, but they're always greater than zero.
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Even if you never forget it can still happen. While not likely the leading cause of a gear up mechanical failures do happen
 
Gear down abeam the numbers. Every time. First notch of flaps comes down with the gear. If the flaps are down, the gear is down too. When practicing power off 180's though, I leave my hand on the gear lever, no need for it elsewhere. That way when you need that drag, gear first. No exceptions. Don't get used to the gear horn, 182's have a 140kt gear speed so there is no need to hear it when slowing down. Ever. I look for the gear & the light (one light on mine) on downwind, base, final and short final. A quick glance out the window a Cessna will tell you if it's down. In a low wing you'll need to look at the light but sam basic principal. Be paranoid, but don't be fearful.
 
As some have indicated, the plane will give the pilot a hint that something isn't right if the pilot is familiar with the plane and listening.

I almost had a gear up once.
I was going into a busy airport. I selected gear down and started looking for traffic rather than for the 3 green gear indicator lights like I typically do. I noticed the plane would just not slow down. Final gear light check on short final showed all lights off. Power up, go around and troubleshoot resulted in use of alternate gear extension required and a faulty pressure switch needing replacement.
 
Fly a 210 and see if you use the same technique. I'll bet you don't.

Z06_Mir said:
Gear down abeam the numbers. Every time. First notch of flaps comes down with the gear. If the flaps are down, the gear is down too. When practicing power off 180's though, I leave my hand on the gear lever, no need for it elsewhere. That way when you need that drag, gear first. No exceptions. Don't get used to the gear horn, 182's have a 140kt gear speed so there is no need to hear it when slowing down. Ever. I look for the gear & the light (one light on mine) on downwind, base, final and short final. A quick glance out the window a Cessna will tell you if it's down. In a low wing you'll need to look at the light but sam basic principal. Be paranoid, but don't be fearful.
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OP - I recently got my complex. I have enough phobias about screwing up so many other things that forgetting to lower the gear is just a small blip. Check, recheck, and check again. And really mean it when you ask yourself on short final, "OK, does everything look good or do I go around?"
 
Typically my gear is down a few miles out otherwise I can't get slowed down for the pattern.
 
A young AA pilot flying on reserve was a part-time IP in the G-V program at SFI when I was there. Somewhere along the line he had picked up a "Last Chance" call on final that included a peek and a point at flap and gear handle positions and indication.
 
I've checked out in two Cessna retracts now -- a Cutlass and a Cardinal. My technique is as follows:

1. Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ignore a gear warning. If it goes off, gear goes down. Even if you're practicing power off stalls gear up, or you screw up energy management on approach and get slow while still far away from the airport. You can TEST the gear warning on the ground, though it's not documented in at least some of the POHs. Press the gear-locked (green) light with the master on, during preflight. Know under what conditions the gear warning sounds. The Cardinal and Cutlass are different in this regard.

2. Descend at Vno (presuming the air is sufficiently smooth). Use the gear as part of the descent procedure, to slow the aircraft down while easing the throttle back gradually.

3. Check gear down in as many different ways as you can. I use the handle position on the 45 (descent into the pattern), the light early in downwind, and a visual abeam the numbers. You can see one wheel on the Cutlass, and all three on the Cardinal (it has a wing mirror), at least in daytime. Each of these is accompanied by a (C)GUMPS check. The Cardinal has no "C" but the Cutlass does.

It remains to be seen how effective this is. I still don't have that many retract hours. But no gear-ups, at least.
 
Z06_Mir said:
Gear down abeam the numbers. Every time. First notch of flaps comes down with the gear. If the flaps are down, the gear is down too. When practicing power off 180's though, I leave my hand on the gear lever, no need for it elsewhere. That way when you need that drag, gear first. No exceptions. Don't get used to the gear horn, 182's have a 140kt gear speed so there is no need to hear it when slowing down. Ever. I look for the gear & the light (one light on mine) on downwind, base, final and short final. A quick glance out the window a Cessna will tell you if it's down. In a low wing you'll need to look at the light but sam basic principal. Be paranoid, but don't be fearful.
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That last one will save you after a straight in, I guess. There's no "abeam the numbers" on an ILS in actual.
 
On instrument approach -- inverse L flow right at the FAF (fuel, cowl flaps, mixture, prop, gear, carb heat, seatbelts / switches)
On visual approach -- gear down at 5 miles. Inverse L flow. Though if I'm instructed to make straight in, I'll head for the FAF and follow the instrument procedure.
On all approaches -- second check "red, blue, green" -- mixture, prop, gear around 2 miles or base, then third check again on short final.

Also, before I even hit the FAF or 5 mile point, I'll use the written checklist to brief the prelanding checks. Jogs the memory a bit and keeps things from being missed.
 
Bill Jennings said:
But VFR straight in? No real set place or reminder to put the gear down. I normally put it down pretty early (3mi out) and check again short final.
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VFR straight in, I put the gear down passing through pattern altitude. VFR flying the pattern, I put it down right after turning downwind. Some people do it abeam the numbers, but in a pre-1978 Cardinal the gear takes 12 seconds to come down, so that's a little late for me (and besides, I might not get a green the first time and have to cycle the gear again).
 
Well, I admire you people that brave the "gear up landing" possibility. I fly down and welded, and for me, that's exactly what I want. Last Wednesday I was at an airport about 70 nm from home, talking to the Chairman of the Airport Commission. He told me about a local DPE that had landed his Bonanza gear up. The DPE had gotten distracted by something, and there you go. He has thousands of hours and I know he is really embarrassed. A couple of years ago, there was a U Tube video about a gear up landing at a local airport. As I recall, the pilot was a CFI with thousands of hours. A newby was in the back seat videoing. The gear horn was blaring and the two guys is the front seat just kept right on talking. You could see the pilot cuss and hit the panel when the scraping sound started. Nope, for me, life is complicated enough already. You guys can have the gear that goes up and down :).
 
Distractions, distractions, distractions......it can defeat the best checklist in the world and is a principal cause for gear ups. Often they are unavoidable so you have to be vigilant specially when something has knocked you off the normal routine. There are some little things you can do that can be quite helpful. I try to get the gear down in the Mooney 3 to 5 mikes out. It helps to slow me down and one less thing to do in the pattern when you are likely to get distracted with other traffic. Once I enter the pattern, then at least three GUMPS before I land while physically touching the gear handle and verifying green light. I hope I never gear up an airplane, but it is always in my mind and its ingrained in me to check,check, and check again.


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So far we have 40-some pilots with 40-something different methods of extending the gear on simple retracs, all of whom obviously believe that their way is the best way to do it (or they would be doing it differently) and we wonder why GA standardization is difficult to achieve. How can it be this hard?
 
wabower said:
So far we have 40-some pilots with 40-something different methods of extending the gear on simple retracs, all of whom obviously believe that their way is the best way to do it (or they would be doing it differently) and we wonder why GA standardization is difficult to achieve. How can it be this hard?
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Well, most of it is due to no standardization of training the trainers with most of the trainers in GA being low time pilots with a minimum of retract time/experience themselves. This is why I have always called for CFI to be a 1500hr rating with work experience required.
 
wabower said:
So far we have 40-some pilots with 40-something different methods of extending the gear on simple retracs, all of whom obviously believe that their way is the best way to do it (or they would be doing it differently) and we wonder why GA standardization is difficult to achieve. How can it be this hard?
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Might have something to do with all the instructors not agreeing, root-cause analysis-wise. ;) We don't (all) just make this crap up. Someone taught us. If those someone's can't build a consistent curriculum I find it a little difficult to place the blame for the resulting mess on the entire GA pilot community.

Think you can get even just the PoA CFIs to all agree on how to standardize it? ROFL! Good luck.
 
Velocity173 said:
Get a plane with a gear warning switch. I've never forgotten the gear on my aircraft but if I did an annoying buzzing sound goes off below 85 kts. If someone can't be alerted to drop the gear with that kind of help, they shouldn't be flying in the first place.
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My instructor told a student once if she advanced the throttle a bit that noise would go away.
 
wabower said:
So far we have 40-some pilots with 40-something different methods of extending the gear on simple retracs, all of whom obviously believe that their way is the best way to do it (or they would be doing it differently) and we wonder why GA standardization is difficult to achieve. How can it be this hard?
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And they all work the same.
 
jesse said:
Part of what I do is on short final ask myself does this all look right? Does my power setting make sense? Does my pitch look right? Does my sink rate make sense? Does my airspeed make sense? I do this in any airplane regardless of the gear and the gear still being up will make much of that not make sense.
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:yeahthat:

Kinda like reaching for the ignition key and thinking tow bar & chalks then crank engine.
 
Probably not, but that's the point. We know that the 121's do it, the 135's do it, and all of the 142's teach it the same way. We also know their accident rates.

Then we look at the 91's and see the variety of methods, many of which frankly don't make much sense but are the work of some "well my theory on that is" dementia on the part of some CFI or PPL and see the accident rate from this method. Isn't the next logical question "what's wrong with this picture?"



denverpilot said:
Might have something to do with all the instructors not agreeing, root-cause analysis-wise. ;) We don't (all) just make this crap up. Someone taught us. If those someone's can't build a consistent curriculum I find it a little difficult to place the blame for the resulting mess on the entire GA pilot community.

Think you can get even just the PoA CFIs to all agree on how to standardize it? ROFL! Good luck.
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wabower said:
Probably not, but that's the point. We know that the 121's do it, the 135's do it, and all of the 142's teach it the same way. We also know their accident rates.

Then we look at the 91's and see the variety of methods, many of which frankly don't make much sense but are the work of some "well my theory on that is" dementia on the part of some CFI or PPL and see the accident rate from this method. Isn't the next logical question "what's wrong with this picture?"
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There are many more variables than just being trained the same way that swing this. Without trying to account for that assuming that it has anything to do with people being trained differently will produce no valid conclusion.

Weekend warriors:
1.) don't train very often
2.) don't take training very seriously
3.) rarely fly
4.) fly around in half busted airplanes they don't want to pay to fix
5.) countless other less than ideal factors that influence accident rates
 
Interesting thing I've noticed, the more time you have in fixed gear planes, the more your first year's insurance costs when you transition to a retract.
 
MAKG1 said:
I
2. Descend at Vno (presuming the air is sufficiently smooth). Use the gear as part of the descent procedure, to slow the aircraft down while easing the throttle back gradually.
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Well that would work if Vno was close to Vlo/Vle. In most planes I've flown there's at least 20 knots of speed difference there. In my plane, there's 52 knots of difference.
 
flyingron said:
Well that would work if Vno was close to Vlo/Vle. In most planes I've flown there's at least 20 knots of speed difference there. In my plane, there's 52 knots of difference.
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"Part of the descent procedure" does not necessarily mean the FIRST part of the descent procedure. The point is to have the gear down, routinely, as early as is reasonable.

Obviously, you have to slow below Vlo before extending your gear. And below Vfe before extending flaps. Vfe is an issue even in a fixed gear 182.
 
jesse said:
There are many more variables than just being trained the same way that swing this. Without trying to account for that assuming that it has anything to do with people being trained differently will produce no valid conclusion.

Weekend warriors:
1.) don't train very often
2.) don't take training very seriously
3.) rarely fly
4.) fly around in half busted airplanes they don't want to pay to fix
5.) countless other less than ideal factors that influence accident rates
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I think if you had inclujded:

6.) don't understand the systems, warnings and failure modes

You would have covered the entire subject.
 
1. Accept the usual level of carnage.
2. Ban GA.
Pick one
 
wabower said:
I think if you had inclujded:

6.) don't understand the systems, warnings and failure modes

You would have covered the entire subject.
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You have something there Wayne. The auto extend and retract restrictions on my Arrow are complicated and I find myself reviewing them often. Also on Local flights I test the auto extend and see where it drops the gear and at what speed it prevents me from raising it. I find I am better equipped to understand how it operates and what I should be doing like locking out the auto feature on short field takeoffs because of these efforts.
 
Attaboy, and exactly as it should be done.

Each type has it's own little tricks and traps (like the approach plate book under the emer handle in the PA-24) that pilots need to understand, but a basic understanding of how things work doesn't seem to be a part of the curriculum unless you're willing to dig a little.

tmyers said:
You have something there Wayne. The auto extend and retract restrictions on my Arrow are complicated and I find myself reviewing them often. Also on Local flights I test the auto extend and see where it drops the gear and at what speed it prevents me from raising it. I find I am better equipped to understand how it operates and what I should be doing like locking out the auto feature on short field takeoffs because of these efforts.
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wabower said:
Fly a 210 and see if you use the same technique. I'll bet you don't.
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Maybe you're right, but I've never flown a 210. This works in my 182RG just fine though, and since that's all I fly it works for me. Gear is down at IAF/OM for instrument stuff unless the IAF is 20 miles out.
Matthew said:
Well, if you simply 'forget' to raise the gear in the first place....
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I've done that.. "Why is this thing climbing so slowwwww?" Oh... :lol::mad2:
 
If you do your landing checklist when you are going to land, the "problem" does not exist. My habit pattern has always been to do my landing checks, and then right as I'm on short final, I will obsessively re-check them down. Hasn't failed me yet. It isn't anything to get superstitious about.......just a really basic thing that the majority of pilots in the world somehow don't screw up most of the time.

Fly retracts for a few years, and I doubt you will have a phobia of this anymore. It will be so much in your habit pattern that you just won't forget. My guess is that your instructor probably himself didn't have much experience in them (a few hundred as a new CFI isn't really much when you are going back and forth between fixed and retract IMO)
 
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