don’t believe much in the interlinked warnings on light airplanes, as they are rather crude.
What’s crude about it? Works fine, I have the same setup as the TB: flaps extended beyond a certain setting and power lever pulled back until a certain position (microswitch driven). I can only imagine that it takes a very long runway and a very strong headwind that the warning would not show.
And yes, Peter, unless going into a short field, I never (other than occasionally for training purposes) land with full flaps – why would I?
Depends very much on the type. The TB20 has rather small flaps of limited effectiveness (hence its requirement of plenty of runway) whereas the pre 1977 C172 has huge Fowler flaps with 40°. I have the same on my 182 and I usually do not land with full flaps. However, my gear warning triggers with 20° flaps as well.
I got into the habit of ‘reds blues greens’ and tend to do it more than once on final, normally catch myself doing it just over the ‘fence’ too.
Its seems to me that full flap is not always appropriate, on all types – for instance in some types when landing at high density altitude and aiming to maintain the capability to go around.
I use GUMPS on final, every landing for whatever that’s worth.
It doesn’t really matter if you use GUMPS or gear down, flaps, lights (me) or whatever … it’s more important THAT you use it.
I view these sort of mechanical alerts as similar to a stall warner. Nice to know they are there but I have really screwed up if I need it for real in normal flight. On the Meridian there is an alarm if power is retarded below about 320ft.lbs without the gear down or if 20 degrees flap is selected without the gear down. Full flap is 36 degrees.
I don’t buy the Everyone can (and, as I read, will one day, sooner or later) forget to drop gear argument. That is one of those sayings that is just incorrect and an excuse for sloppiness.
You avoid it by having a set procedure for flying a circuit, approach or whatever and following it. I also do not remove my hand for the gear handle until I get three greens having once had a partial extension.
With very careful speed control, full flap and maximum use of brakes, a TB20 can land and stop in about 200m of tarmac. Takeoff needs about 300m, incidentally, so the story about lots of runway is just a story.
With 1/2 flap and max use of brakes you will need more like 500m. This partly due to the extra 10-15kt of speed required and partly due to the lack of braking from the flaps.
With no flap and no brakes you will need about 1000-1500m.
So there is a clear use for full flap unless you want to wear your brakes out.
You also get a much more nose-down attitude so can see what you are doing.
The 25kt max demo crosswind is with full flap, too.
I also do not believe a gear up is unavoidable, but if you don’t use full flap, it can happen much more easily.
That DA42 approach video doesn’t look that steep 
I also use GUMPS every time. It was drilled in my mooney conversion and it became a useful habit. But in the beginning I sometimes forget ( not used to it from the p28a) and was happy with the gearwarning horn. Now, it would mean a mistake/ sloppiness if I would hear that sound, and a reason for more circuittraining again.
1) fly a fixed gear plane
Agree 100% The Saab Safir is a great plane to fly. The one thing I don’t like is the retractable gear. So much added complexity and distraction for so little. In some high performance airplanes, retractable gear is a must. Gliders have it, but they are much simpler. We use HHH (meaning Alt, Wheel, Velocity – in Norwegian, together with a BBB meaning something else) for all gliders, retractable or not. This should be simple to remember, but each year at least one person manages to land with the wheel in, in our club alone. A real check list would maybe work better, but then different check lists would have to be made for each aircraft to make sense, and this will complicate things.
What does GUMPS mean?
What does GUMPS mean?
G as (US English for fuel)
U ndercarriage
M ixture
P rop
S eatbelts (tight and secure) and s witches (e.g. landing light)
My instructor drilled that into my from day one, although I obviously didn’t fly a complex a/c at the time (I learned to fly on a PA28-161). I normally do three: downwind, base (or long final if required by ATC), short final. Has – so far! – stopped me from doing a gear-up.
WRT the full-flap discussion. This really depends on type. Some need it, others (e.g. C172/C182) only need it for short field. I set flap according to the circumstances.
The only way to avoid a gear up landing is using a fixed gear plane.
If you watch the Megeve video, you notice that the gear warning horn sounds constantly.
The human mind filters sounds and a constant sound will not be noticed anymore.
So you have an approach where ATC wants you to fly high till late. So you retard the throttle below the warning threshold. (some system just have a throttle switch)and the horn bleeps. At some point you stop noticing the horn.
