Landing with no landing gear

[gcolyer]

How amazing is this for a landing with no undercarraige

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SHYyly9k84

[Saab Dastard]

Easy - just remember to flare 2 feet lower :p

SD

[stevef]

That's slicker than some 'gear down' landings I've seen! Saved the cost of two PT6 overhauls as well.

[gcolyer]

Easy - just remember to flare 2 feet lower :p

SD


I don't think it is so easy when your butt is sucking the seat up!:bored:

[Big Hilly]

I remember watching that at the time that it happened. Some of THE very best flying I have seen in a very long long time!

BH

[Hour Builder]

Thats a great landing, straight down the centreline, and better then most of my landings with gear down.

HB

[josher]

absolutely beautifully done but I assume this was a u/c problem so with the choice why not on grass?

[smarthawke]

It's one of those very long debatable topics!

Most agree that landing on tarmac does little more damage through abrasion than digging in to the grass and not so much of an abrupt stop.

[Fuji Abound]

"Saved the cost of two PT6 overhauls as well."

Are they that resilient?

[MSP Aviation]

look how softly he touched down. due to the dihedral of the wing, the bottom of the cowlings are at about the same height as the bottom of the fuselage. as long as the props aren't turning to tear the engines apart, they should be fine. the cowling lowers will most likely need to be replaced from scraping, and the engine mounting points should be inspected, but it ought to be alright.

[Will Hung]

Any guesses what his approach speed would have been ? Seemed very fast to me.

[IO540]

I think his approach was very fast but then he wasn't using flaps, so I guess 100kt+. The runway was very long.

I would not rule out engine damage; the props must have touched and that is likely to damage the gearbox. If he had PT6s then the engine isn't connected to the gearbox with a shaft anyway.

Very good landing.

[moggiee]

Very nice work - pity about the gibbering journos talking tosh over the video!

[Merritt]

Apologies if it has already been posted but just saw this and was pretty impressed by the smooth no wheels landing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbvfrNF1_fU

Steve

[QDMQDMQDM]

You can see it really floating in ground effect.

[Nil Flaps]

Holy crap... hope I'm as talented as this guy one day. Legend. :D

[S-Works]

I had a bit of gear moment myself this weekend. Heading to Lyon to watch the Rugby and decided to route via Guernsey in th twin for fuel. Crappy weather on Friday so airways IMC, get to Ortac and doing the de-ice check and I see in the mirror on the engine the nose wheel start to appear and then ice up. I tried to cycle the gear a couple of times and nothing was happening.

I had to fly the ILS down to about 1000ft before getting visual at the same time as dropping the gear manually and rocking the aircraft to get the gear to lock. Finally managed to get 3 greens and do a fly past of the tower before landing. It turns out the bushes in the motor that powers the hydraulics had burnt out!

I thought I was going to have a bad day. ASG at Guernsey fixed the problem over the weekend in Stirling fashion (what a fantastic bunch of guys!) and I used the forced stay to Christmas shop! There are few better places to be stuck than Guernsey!!

[Flyin'Dutch']

I had a bit of gear moment myself this weekend. Heading to Lyon to watch the Rugby and decided to route via Guernsey in th twin for fuel. Crappy weather on Friday so airways IMC, get to Ortac and doing the de-ice check and I see in the mirror on the engine the nose wheel start to appear and then ice up. I tried to cycle the gear a couple of times and nothing was happening.
I had to fly the ILS down to about 1000ft before getting visual at the same time as dropping the gear manually and rocking the aircraft to get the gear to lock. Finally managed to get 3 greens and do a fly past of the tower before landing. It turns out the bushes in the motor that powers the hydraulics had burnt out!
I thought I was going to have a bad day. ASG at Guernsey fixed the problem over the weekend in Stirling fashion (what a fantastic bunch of guys!) and I used the forced stay to Christmas shop! There are few better places to be stuck than Guernsey!!

Loss of hydraulic pressure causing the pump to be activated time and time again burning out the electric motor.

[S-Works]

Other way around, the bushes had worn out on the pump motor to the point where it was only the springs providing the spark. The pump worked enough to get the gear up but not enough to provide enough pressure to put it up completely. Then with some sort of leak the pump was unable to run and the nose gear drooped down, but for some reason not the mains.

It proves the benefit of having a check list for essential actions. My passengers were a little concerned and then happy they had a bar story!!

[IO540]

Normally there would be an indicator light somewhere, showing the gear pump is running. So, if there is a leak, one should spot this happening. The gear pump also drawn a lot of current which ought to be evident on things like the ammeter.

I had such a leak, internal to the gear emergency release valve. This valve releases the pressure within the system, allowing the gear to drop under its own weight (plus some gas springs for the nose wheel). This valve contains three tiny seals. Normally these are never replaced ( no need to) but on my last G-reg Annual a "new interpretation of EASA regs" caused them to be replaced, involving a great deal of labour and damaging them in the process, and they lasted only a few minutes into the flight. I released the gear and landed with it down; no big deal.

[Fuji Abound]

Strange - had a similiar problem going to Lille at the weekend on the twin.

Gear running and apparently down but not a single green in site.

A tower pass proved the gear was down, but despite several recycles still not a green in site.

Well it seemed it was either going to collapse on the landing roll or not. Fortunately it didnt.

Turned out their is one position in the cabin dim rheostat that results in the greens being invisible - should have known perhaps but it has caught out those with far more experienceon type than me. :)

[S-Works]

Normally there would be an indicator light somewhere, showing the gear pump is running. So, if there is a leak, one should spot this happening. The gear pump also drawn a lot of current which ought to be evident on things like the ammeter.

I had such a leak, internal to the gear emergency release valve. This valve releases the pressure within the system, allowing the gear to drop under its own weight (plus some gas springs for the nose wheel). This valve contains three tiny seals. Normally these are never replaced ( no need to) but on my last G-reg Annual a "new interpretation of EASA regs" caused them to be replaced, involving a great deal of labour and damaging them in the process, and they lasted only a few minutes into the flight. I released the gear and landed with it down; no big deal.

There is no gear pump light on the Seneca and I was running the de-ice systems so already seeing massive movements on the ammeters so when the pump was running it would have been disguised by the hot props and cycling and me running the boots.

[possel]

It's one of those very long debatable topics!

Most agree that landing on tarmac does little more damage through abrasion than digging in to the grass and not so much of an abrupt stop.

I don't think there's any debate; people think that grass is softer but once you see the damage of both methods, there is no doubt - concrete every time (and lots of it!). Grass will stop you much quicker and that energy has to be absorbed somewhere. Also, a wingtip could dig into grass and turn you over, but not into concrete.