Just wondering how many of you practise emergency gear extension procedures on a regular basis, or even just once in the past?
I had a lonely moment the other day when I flipped the gear switch and waited…and waited..and…
I obviously wasn’t going to get my three greens that day, or any day before Christmas.
Time for an emergency gear extension.
The trick in the Lancair (in any aircraft?), is to get really nice and slooooow – which the Lancair doesn’t like, of course. The main gear will generally drop and lock ok, but the nose gear can be tricky. Moving aft to forward, it has to drop through and well past 90° to get fully extended and locked.
I managed to get two out of three greens, including the nose gear. The left main gear came down, but didn’t lock. To my relief, I got the third green climbing away after a low pass for checking purposes.
It all ended uneventfully, but I was glad I’d practised the procedure in the air several times in the past.
How about you? I guess everyone practises emergency gear extensions from time to time? What about instructors? Do you actually go through the procedure in the air, or is it better to stick to briefing students on the ground?
It depends on the aircraft. On some you cannot perform an actual emergency gear extension for training. That is for example the case in the DA42. But I have done it in the PA28R, and the M20C. Don’t remember if I ever did it on the F33A.
I remember that on the M20C it was hard work because the hand crank was located in an awkward place and you had to make many turns. On the PA28R it is a simple free-fall mechanism activated by releasing the hydraulic pressure. But you may need to pull some Gs or do some yaw/sideslip to get all of the gears to lock.
My impression is that when you fly a RG with an instructor on-board, your gear WILL fail. They usually expect you to identify that the gear is not locked, go around and troubleshoot. It may be the lightbulb, the C/B or an “actual” failure. Whether they expect you to demonstrate emergency gear extension depends on the aircraft, but you would at minimum need to explain how to perform the emergency extension.
On the M20C I was only asked to perform an emergency gear extension once. On subsequent occasions I was just asked to talk through the steps.
Jojo wrote:
What about instructors? Do you actually go through the procedure in the air, or is it better to stick to briefing students on the ground?
Luckily (in that respect) we operate Piper retractables, both singles and twins, at “my” FTO where you can perform the emergency extension procedure without requiring maintenance thereafter. So yes, it is normal to do that during training as well as during checkrides. On the Citation at work we train the full procedure in the simulator every time.
The important thing – as with every abnormal and emergency proedure – is to do it according to the manual and/or checklist. In real life it is a rare event and on many aircraft there are requirements for the speed at which the gear can be manually extended. On some types circuit breakers need to be pulled before operating the emergency extension mechanism. Often you have only one attempt, especially if pressurised nitrogen is used to blow down the gear, and if you get something wrong by doing it from memory you will wreck your plane in the process.
Aviathor wrote:
It may be the lightbulb, the C/B or an “actual” failure.
In a Piper retractable it is enough to turn on the Nav-lights secretly without the student noticing. This will dim the green lights so much that one can’t see them in sunshine…
That’s the C with electric gear right?
The one bit I am very happy with my “C” is the manual gear though I hated it in the beginning. No emergency extension ever. But it can lock up if the rudder is not centered before extension. The only thing one has to be really careful with is the downlock.
I remember the Bonanza… lots of turns and easy to think its down when it isn’t. Same with the Travel Air. Piper is quite straightforward normally.
what_next wrote:
In a Piper retractable it is enough to turn on the Nav-lights secretly without the student noticing.
That just shows how long it’s been since I flew the PA28R. I totally forgot about that. 
Mooney_Driver wrote:
That’s the C with electric gear right?
Yes
Aviathor wrote:
That just shows how long it’s been since I flew the PA28R. I totally forgot about that.
Memory item #1 in a Piper if you don’t get three greens is checking the nav lights…
what_next wrote:
In a Piper retractable it is enough to turn on the Nav-lights secretly without the student noticing. This will dim the green lights so much that one can’t see them in sunshine…
It caught me out :(
Yes, at least every other year during the Flight Review (C182RG).
I like to have my clients with retracts come out when the plane is on jacks so that they can perform a couple of emergency gear extensions and get a feel for what to look for.
I have the test done on jacks at the Annual and then do it in the air afterwards.
The jacked-up test is crucial because the hydraulic power is awesome (even on a Lancair 320; it uses the same sort of Parker pump as the TB20) and you can have landing gear which is practically seized up but the hydraulics will still move it. But the emergency extension won’t. On jacks, it must move smoothly by hand. Also, on jacks, one checks the gear doors end up exactly just touching the airframe, with a little bit of positive pressure so there is no vibration.
Almost all gear problems I have heard of were due to lack of maintenance – lack of lubrication basically. Only very rarely does something actually break. The correct grease must be used; liquids are no good because the airflow (and rain, etc) washes them out quickly. But greasing is time-consuming… especially if there are no grease nipples.
