Poor RG...

Nick6485

Nick6485

Well-Known Member
Earlier this week one of the students or renters had a mishap with the plane I was doing my commercial training in. Pilot wasn't hurt, but the plane definitely was....and this is after it got a fresh engine, gov, and prop just 3 months ago.

From what I was told, he was doing touch and goes, and on the go he didn't retract the flaps, added full power resulting in this.....

Just glad the pilot is ok...the plane can be replaced.


photo.jpg
 
Did he retract gear instead of flaps or are you saying full power and full flaps in the 172 (?) RG puts large pressure on the nosegear?

Alex.
 
ahw01 said:
Did he retract gear instead of flaps or are you saying full power and full flaps in the 172 (?) RG puts large pressure on the nosegear?

Alex.
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Just forwarding what they told me. I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure what happened.

But I'm thinking he came in a little too fast and nosed it in....but like I said. Wasn't there. I'm waiting for the official cause.
 
The flaps are still down and the mains are in a forward position. Most likely hit the gear instead of the flaps. The squat switch on these are on the nose which would result in the nose gear being up but the mains still down.
 
Maurus said:
The flaps are still down and the mains are in a forward position. Most likely hit the gear instead of the flaps. The squat switch on these are on the nose which would result in the nose gear being up but the mains still down.
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The mains fold backward though so wouldn't the mains fold up also?
 
Maurus said:
The flaps are still down and the mains are in a forward position. Most likely hit the gear instead of the flaps. The squat switch on these are on the nose which would result in the nose gear being up but the mains still down.
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I'm not sure how the nose wheel would be up and the mains be down. Maybe I'm missing something.
 
poser765 said:
I'm not sure how the nose wheel would be up and the mains be down. Maybe I'm missing something.
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Usually the nose starts moving first on those RG Cessnas. So if he hit the gear switch, the nos wheel probably started to retract, then collapsed, and it all happened before the mains started moving.
 
You can easily retract the nose wheel and have the mains just as they are in the photo. We worked on a lot of fish spotter 172RGs during the season. One of them complained of some sort of issue with the nose gear. Instead of putting it on jacks, the mechanic had 2 guys sit on the horizontal stab, lifting the nose gear up off the ground. Someone would be in the cockpit, move the gear lever to the up position, and the mains would stay in place. Allowed him to quickly diagnose the problem without putting a lot of time and effort into jacking the airplane.
 
Roger said:
Usually the nose starts moving first on those RG Cessnas. So if he hit the gear switch, the nos wheel probably started to retract, then collapsed, and it all happened before the mains started moving.
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I think I get that. but if the for the power pack to come on in the first place the nose has to come up because of the squat switch. So for the nose gear to come up the nose would have to be pointed up if that's the case if the wheel did start to retract I don't see how the nose would just fall down like that...if you are past rotation speed.

ohhh, wait...unless homeboy pulled the "flaps" up AS SOON as the mains touched and before the nose gear did.
 
Where I worked as a CFI, we had a BEAUTIFUL 182RG (N9947C)...I became the "RG guru" while there (have about 500 hours in that one airplane). For the reasons listed above (squat switch on the nose gear, accidental grabbing of landing gear instead of flaps...), we prohibited touch-and-go's in that airplane.

I love the 182RG, by far my fav single engine airplane to fly in.

N9947C1.jpg
 
We had a guy taxi out of my old school in a 172RG with the gear switch up. When he hit a bump, the squat switch deactivated and it did the exact same thing as the one in the picture.
 
I think the problem is lack of experience if you hit the flaps instead of the gear. Do you have to lift the handle and pull up like in the arrow?
 
The RG's landing gear handle is on the "pilot's" side, you'll see in the picture below it's the LARGE (bigger than an Arrow's) handle, you have to pull it out, then push it up in order to raise the gear (and vise versa). The flaps switch is on the "co-pilot's" side, and is quite a reach from the pilot's sitting position.

N9947C2.jpg
 
Why would anyone say no touch in goes in a retract. Dont use it for primary training maybe, but to say no touch and goes in a retract thats going a bit far.
 
TFaudree_ERAU said:
You can easily retract the nose wheel and have the mains just as they are in the photo. We worked on a lot of fish spotter 172RGs during the season. One of them complained of some sort of issue with the nose gear. Instead of putting it on jacks, the mechanic had 2 guys sit on the horizontal stab, lifting the nose gear up off the ground. Someone would be in the cockpit, move the gear lever to the up position, and the mains would stay in place. Allowed him to quickly diagnose the problem without putting a lot of time and effort into jacking the airplane.
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This is stupid for a lot of reasons. I am pretty sure Cessna wouldn't recommend that procedure, even if the horizontal Stab AD didn't apply to that particular model.
 
Inverted said:
Why would anyone say no touch in goes in a retract. Dont use it for primary training maybe, but to say no touch and goes in a retract thats going a bit far.
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Mistakes happen, and in a few planes they are situated closely. Take an extra minute and do a stop and go, no sense rushing it and having this happen. Just my .02
 
Inverted said:
Why would anyone say no touch in goes in a retract. Dont use it for primary training maybe, but to say no touch and goes in a retract thats going a bit far.
Click to expand...

When I was training at DCA, they prohibited touch-and-go's in the Arrow (we could in the Seminole's though, go figure).

The main reason we prohibited them with the 182RG is risk management. You remove the risk of having a nose gear/main gear retraction due to inadvertent gear handle movement. We were a still a new flight school and didn't want to have an accidents/incidents on our insurance (didn't want any period!), but especially when first starting out.
 
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