BlueStreak
New Member
I just thought I would share a little experience I had today. I went flying in the Arrow this afternoon with my instructor to fine tune my commercial maneuvers. After finishing our maneuvers we decided to go back and work on the shorts and softs. I entered downwind and lowered the gear. I looked down and noticed that we were only indicating that our mains were down, no nosewheel light at all. We decided to recycle the gear to see if that would help. Still the same indication. We then exited the pattern and climbed to a higher altitude. I flew while my instructor swapped the bulbs with each other and checked the circuit breakers. Still the same indication. We decided to try the emergency gear extension (a drop down system on the Arrow). That still didn't help.
We contacted unicom and had some guys go out on the ramp while we did a fly-by the see what they noticed. They replied that it appeared all gear where down and locked. We climbed back out to the south and decided to go through all of our troubleshooting one more time, since we had plenty of fuel and plenty of time. We didn't want to rush and end up doing something stupid. We went through all of our steps again and he flew while I went through the POH do make sure there was nothing that was missed. Our gear transition light would not go out, which made us worry about the position of the nosewheel. We went back in for another pass, and the people on the ground said that everything still looked ok. We flew out a ways and talked about what we were going to do. We decided that we weren't going to declare an emergency. We would attempt a landing, ready to go around if necessary.
Everything, except for the gear, looked great for landing so we entered the pattern. My instructor was flying the airplane so I opened the door and was standing by to shut the fuel off if necessary. We touched down perfectly on the mains and held the nose off as long as possible. The nose came down and the gear held. We both breathed a huge sigh of relief and thanked God everything worked out ok. I'm not a religious person but it's funny how religious you get when things start to go wrong
Looking back on it now, I think we handled the in-flight troubleshooting very well. We used all the resources available to us and had great CRM in the cockpit. The only thing I could reconsider would be whether or not we should of declared an emergency. Perhaps we should've in this case, but we both felt that it wasn't necessary. I guess it's just one of those things that you won't know if you need to until you're in the situation. I am just glad that everything worked out for the best and that I can just look back at this as a learning experience. Kudos to my instructor for handling the situation with great ease.
For all of you out there that haven't experienced any emergencies or possible emergencies, be sure to review your procedures often and think about how you would handle the situation if it arose. You just never know.
Thanks for letting me vent!
We contacted unicom and had some guys go out on the ramp while we did a fly-by the see what they noticed. They replied that it appeared all gear where down and locked. We climbed back out to the south and decided to go through all of our troubleshooting one more time, since we had plenty of fuel and plenty of time. We didn't want to rush and end up doing something stupid. We went through all of our steps again and he flew while I went through the POH do make sure there was nothing that was missed. Our gear transition light would not go out, which made us worry about the position of the nosewheel. We went back in for another pass, and the people on the ground said that everything still looked ok. We flew out a ways and talked about what we were going to do. We decided that we weren't going to declare an emergency. We would attempt a landing, ready to go around if necessary.
Everything, except for the gear, looked great for landing so we entered the pattern. My instructor was flying the airplane so I opened the door and was standing by to shut the fuel off if necessary. We touched down perfectly on the mains and held the nose off as long as possible. The nose came down and the gear held. We both breathed a huge sigh of relief and thanked God everything worked out ok. I'm not a religious person but it's funny how religious you get when things start to go wrong
Looking back on it now, I think we handled the in-flight troubleshooting very well. We used all the resources available to us and had great CRM in the cockpit. The only thing I could reconsider would be whether or not we should of declared an emergency. Perhaps we should've in this case, but we both felt that it wasn't necessary. I guess it's just one of those things that you won't know if you need to until you're in the situation. I am just glad that everything worked out for the best and that I can just look back at this as a learning experience. Kudos to my instructor for handling the situation with great ease.
For all of you out there that haven't experienced any emergencies or possible emergencies, be sure to review your procedures often and think about how you would handle the situation if it arose. You just never know.
Thanks for letting me vent!