CRJ nose gear doors

T

TallFlyer

Well-Known Member
Ok, so total a.net moment (literally) but I'm looking at pics of CRJs and I'm noticing that the nose gear doors can be either open or closed when the gear is down and locked and the aircraft is on the ground.

Why is this?
 
Not an RJ pilot, but this is what I picked up on when working around them for 3 years.

CRJ-100/200 doors are closed on the ground. They can be opened via a switch in a panel located in the forward right nose section.

CRJ-700/900 nose wheel doors are open anytime that the gear is in the down position.

Personally, I think the CRJ200s would look a lot better if the doors were down all of the time. They just look weird otherwise.
 
N519AT said:
Not an RJ pilot, but this is what I picked up on when working around them for 3 years.

CRJ-100/200 doors are closed on the ground. They can be opened via a switch in a panel located in the forward right nose section.

CRJ-700/900 nose wheel doors are open anytime that the gear is in the down position.

Personally, I think the CRJ200s would look a lot better if the doors were down all of the time. They just look weird otherwise.
Click to expand...

They would also be a heck of a lot less dangerous.
 
cencal83406 said:
They would also be a heck of a lot less dangerous.
Click to expand...

The danger is that someone will accidentally flip the switch while you're looking in the gear well? Has anyone had that happen to them?

And as for why the 200 and 700/900 are different - I have no idea.
 
N519AT said:
The danger is that someone will accidentally flip the switch while you're looking in the gear well? Has anyone had that happen to them?

And as for the difference between the 200 and 700/900...I have no clue.
Click to expand...

No the danger is that the switch could be put in the FLT/NORM position with the hydraulics OFF (while the doors are open), and when the hydraulics are turned on, the doors will immediately close...
 
The 200 doors are hydraulically actuated. The 700/900 (and I'd guess 1000) doors are mechanically linked to the nose gear extension mechanism.

As Cencal said, you have to be pretty careful around the nose doors as they close with about 3000psi of force. Fortunately, we don't have to open them ever to look inside (but don't tell the TSA that), but other carriers do.
 
Seems an odd thing to have on a cockpit switch, maybe a better design would've been a switch behind an access panel near the nose or a strictly mechanical design like the -700.
 
Is there a cockpit switch too? I just thought there was the one in the comm panel. If so... one more thing to worry about while you're hooking up the towbar, next to the RAT door...
 
Challenger 601 has the same thing. That's why I never do a preflight. I'd rather have a flat tire and not know about it than get my head chopped off.





I'm kidding of course.
 
cencal83406 said:
No the danger is that the switch could be put in the FLT/NORM position with the hydraulics OFF (while the doors are open), and when the hydraulics are turned on, the doors will immediately close...
Click to expand...

Slightly OT, but we had a guy lose the end of his pinkie on a CRJ-200 when I was a ramper at SkyWest. He and another dude were chatting with their hand propped up on the trailing edge of an aileron (real brainiacs) and crewmember went into the front and fired up the airplane up. You can imagine the rest.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top