You been mess’n with the threads Peter ?
What the hey is going on with the server ?
It was as I indicated earlier - the emergency gear release knob not fully pushed in.
I will do a quick writeup when I get back.
Soooooo - what was the gear issue then
Pulled the wrong lever? See recent thread about reading glasses
Soooooo - what was the gear issue then ;-) Day/night switch, perchance?
In any case - enjoy a nice and cool one!
Tracking link for attempt #2
Here's my story:
The other day I went for a test flight with a friend after doing the 50h service myself. After takeoff, I retracted the gear but nothing happened. The green light was still on. I have a mirror under the right wing to see the nose gear and my friend said "look, it's halfway extended". I tried cycling the gear, no reaction, green light remained on. Went into a stable flight with autopilot on, informed the aerodrome that I have gear trouble and will stay in the vicinity and advise further. The focus was on expanding that "halfway extended" nose gear and land. I tried the hand pump but it gave me a lot of resistance and nothing happened.
After some time I engaged my brain and got the emergency checklist. First item: "check circuit breaker". Circuit breaker popped. Put the circuit breaker in, gear operated normally. Did a fly by the tower to be 110% sure. I also thought about how the green light worked and this gave me further confidence.
All that because my copilot said "it's halfway extended". It's very hard to see from the mirror what the correct position is and he got me fooled.
Lessons learned: stay cool, carefully analyze the situation, follow the protocol, don't draw immature conclusions.
Nothing wrong with the gear
Saying no more
I think the cause is simply the landing gear emergency release valve not being fully closed.
I should have thought of that in flight!
The gear comes up but the gear pump cycles repeatedly at about 1Hz, which is what you get if there is a leak, and usually the leak is in the gear release valve not being fully closed.
But it does need to be tested on jacks, for a while to make sure it stays up, because if the gear pump is run with the valve not fully closed, the seals can be damaged.
The circuit breaker panel, which lies right under neath the valve handle, was removed a few days ago, so this makes sense.
Making sure it is closed is a preflight check but it is quite stiff and one could be fooled.
With a bit of luck it will be sorted this afternoon.