Please Please Please...............

I hate hearing about stuff like this cause it really can happen to anybody. One of my former instructors had it happen a month or so again and he was one of the better ones I've ever flown with. Just a bad situation that I'm sure you'll bounce back on and laugh about it someday. And i'd also be willing to bet that it will never ever happen again :-P Chin up and get back on the horse.
 
bob loblaw said:
I have always said that flying a retractable geared version of a similar airframe can easily bite you in the butt. I have close to sixty hours in a Beech Sundowner and another sixty in its look-a-like brother the Beech Sierra. If you aren't carefull and you don't use the checklist, atleast ask yourself which plane am I flying. I say this because I know that everyone always uses the checklist. Asking yourself that question can help you remember to make sure the gear is where it is supposed to be and keep you from beating the shortfield numbers in the book by a thousand feet.

I have a new saying for this event. If you slip and slide, it's gonna cost a lot to rebuild your pride, and a whole bunch more to rebuild your ride.
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Vic, did you change your name and return?
 
I did. Doug is aware and monitoring my new alter ego's behavior. I chose the name bob loblaw because of a new Scott Baio show where he plays an attorney named Bob Loblaw. I laughed my butt off when he said his character's name; if you put the names together and say them fast it sounds like blah,blah blah.
 
Hey, just a thought on this subject. For all those who are training people to fly retrac or are learning to fly them and those who do this regularly, i feel it is really important not allow the gear horn to go off even while training.

I have been with people/CFI's who would allow the gear horn to go off (Seminole = 2nd or 3rd notch of flaps, and/or flight idle with gear up) and they would just say "oh yeah, just disregard that horn for now." The training goes on and the student gets complacent with the gear horn. I decided to teach (after listening to some good advice) to never allow the gear horn to go off. You can configure the plane quite easily so it doesn't have the gear horn sounding. You should never have that thing go off unless it is supposed to because you forgot the gear.

The other part of this rant is how many planes that are out there that people have disconnected the gear horn. This is usually done with the excuse "OH, that thing would just constantly go off so we pulled the breaker." Bad idea!
 
What Ophir says works great for training, however, when you are flying in the real world you sometimes have to adjust for the conditions you are faced with. By this I mean lets say that you are flying a Piper Seminole that has a VLE of 140 knots. You are following a 737 into a international airport and a 737 is following you. You are going faster than VLE because you have to share the same runway as the airliners do, and you are asked to keep your speed up until 3 miles out. you reach three miles and you have no choice but to pull the power back below 15 inches of MP to slow to VLE 140kts. What happens? The gear horn goes off until you are at VLE and you drop the gear. Now you can safely slow to VFE speeds and make the first turnoff without making the 737 behind you s-turn or go-around.

I learned to fly at BWI airport over 18 years ago in a Cessna 152. Back in 1987, runway 33R ( the GA runway ) did not exist. I had to learn to fly the 152 as fast as I can in between two 737's and still make the first turn off so the 737 behind me doesn't have to s-turn or go-around. I can tell you that it is much easier to do in a Seminole than a 152.
 
Ophir said:
For all those who are training people to fly retrac or are learning to fly them and those who do this regularly, i feel it is really important not allow the gear horn to go off even while training.

I have been with people/CFI's who would allow the gear horn to go off (Seminole = 2nd or 3rd notch of flaps, and/or flight idle with gear up) and they would just say "oh yeah, just disregard that horn for now." The training goes on and the student gets complacent with the gear horn. I decided to teach (after listening to some good advice) to never allow the gear horn to go off. You can configure the plane quite easily so it doesn't have the gear horn sounding. You should never have that thing go off unless it is supposed to because you forgot the gear.
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I completely agree with you. That's how I teach when giving complex endorsements. Besides paying attention to the gear horn to make sure the gear is down, I believe it forces pilots to plan ahead further with their power reductions and descents. However, I have one note to make about Piper Arrows...

During short field takeoffs over an obstacle, the gear horn will go off because you should have two notches of flaps set on takeoff and bring the gear up immediately after liftoff. The two notches flaps/gear up configuration sets off the horn--but how else could the takeoff be performed? Leaving the gear out is a bad idea because it is killing climb performance. Retracting flaps one notch, then retracting the gear later is bad because you would be losing lift from the flaps during a slow airspeed/high drag situation, which is also a bad idea when trying to clear an obstacle.

So this is one case where the gear horn should go off. But I'm only bringing this up because Arrows are such common training aircraft. In most cases, the horn should always remain silent.
 
override gear horn

In the above example with the seminole... you can silence the alarm by pressing in the Gear Warn Annunciator at the pilots 12 o'clock high on the panel. There are three things that set of the warning horn... man pressure below 14, gear switch up on ground, and second notch flaps w.o gear. only one of these can be overridin but i am not exactly 100% which. Almost positive it is the 14 in man pressure but dont hold me to it.

Heres something else to watch out for. POTHOLES on the ramp!!!! Especially for single engine a/c. taxiing at night on unlit ramps is extremely dangerous especially in turns. your landing lights show whats in front but not what around the corner... tie down holes for other aircraft, potholes, big dips..... some airports have them all. just a friendly tip.
 
sleepy3528 said:
In the above example with the seminole... you can silence the alarm by pressing in the Gear Warn Annunciator at the pilots 12 o'clock high on the panel. There are three things that set of the warning horn... man pressure below 14, gear switch up on ground, and second notch flaps w.o gear. only one of these can be overridin but i am not exactly 100% which. Almost positive it is the 14 in man pressure but dont hold me to it.

In my example I gave, the gear horn should be going off until you reach VLE. I do want to address the statement above about silencing the gear horn. The silencer button will mute the gear horn, and I have muted the horn that way myself, but you have to be careful when doing that because you may just set the airplane up for a gear up if the other back-ups don't work.
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Ophir said:
Hey, just a thought on this subject. For all those who are training people to fly retrac or are learning to fly them and those who do this regularly, i feel it is really important not allow the gear horn to go off even while training.
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You and the guy who checked me out in the Cardinal (which I LOVE, BTW) must be from the same school of thought. The first time I went up in that airplane, I was just a tad bit behind (gee, who'd have thunk that a 30 percent increase in cruise means you have to do thing faster). So when I dropped power low in order to lose altitude quickly, the gear horn went off. I was told, do something to fix that right now. Either drop the gear or do it a different way, but you never want to get used to hearing that sound.
 
bob loblaw said:
In my example I gave, the gear horn should be going off until you reach VLE. I do want to address the statement above about silencing the gear horn. The silencer button will mute the gear horn, and I have muted the horn that way myself, but you have to be careful when doing that because you may just set the airplane up for a gear up if the other back-ups don't work.
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Nothing wrong with silencing the horn for training purposes, just have the SA to know you did it; and be mindful to not becoming complacent whenever you hear any sort of horn or warning device.
 
Yeah, but that's what we agreed on the other couple of times the axe had to drop! :)

To be really honest, when I was working on my multi, that warning horn would squawk constantly as we were out practicing single-engine work in a seminole. And a few times both myself and the instructor got to the point where we're trucking down final approach on a single-engine and nearly forgot to put the gear down.

On the MD-88/90, we have silenceable and unsilenceable landing gear warnings.

Speaking of configuration warnings, the flap warning on the Delta 727 that ran off the end of the runway back in 91 (was that when???) never sounded.
 
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