Engine Faillure with RG, lower wheels or not ?

[sternone]

Hi,

If you have a plane with retractable gear, i hear some people claim that if they need to make an emergency landing they prefer to do it on the belly...without the wheels, because they are scared that the rough ground surface will turn over the plane ?

I always thought that cracking the wheels while doing emergency landings will also break the speed and impact a little ? What would you do ?

[IO540]

On any reasonable surface, I would land gear down.

On a half decent plane, landing gear up is a minimum £30,000 bill (engine stripdown, new prop, etc). OK if you are renting, I suppose .....

On water, gear UP obviously.

[scooter boy]

Sternone,
Depends on the type you're flying.

I guess if you're ditching in a Cirrus or Lancair you have to make a quick trip under the belly with a hacksaw to lose the wheels :E. Anyhow they are plastic and plastic floats so you might be OK until help arrives!!

The advice from Mooney is to land gear-up unless you are on a good surface. The idea is that the aircraft is less likely to flip over. It will cost a new prop etc... but you will be more likely to survive.

Have you flown with Andre yet in the Ovation 3?

SB

[172driver]

Been thinking about that a bit, as most types I fly are RG. I'd say it depends.

Firstly on height - if a failure were to occur at, say 1000 AGL or below, I don't think I'd bother trying to get the gear out. The gear motor draws a lot of power, and I wouldn't want to find myself in a situation, where the gear is half out, the battery empty an no more juice for the flaps :eek: If, OTOH, it were to occur in the cruise, AND I was reasonably certain to find a decent surface for the landing, then I'd pump the gear out by hand and try that.

Secondly on surface. If all you have is a beach or a field, gear up generally reduces your chances of flipping over. On water, it's gear up, obviously.

Thirdly, on type, check your POH.

I'd say I'd rather walk away and deal with the insurance than have the insurance deal with my remains !

[englishal]

If you suffer engine failure and you land gear down sucessfully in a field, will the insurance company pay for the engine?

If you land gear up and trash the prop and "damage" the engine, will they pay for the engine?

Before my time in our group, one of the members did a heavy landing and bounced, leaving the nose gear behind. They then landed with the inevitable prop strike and engine shock loading. As a result out plane got a zero timed engine from the insurance (only about 250 hours ago :ok:).

All very important considerations :)

[IO540]

I'd say I'd rather walk away and deal with the insurance than have the insurance deal with my remains !

Of course one must agree with that, but people almost never get killed in landing accidents.

If I was going into a field I would without question land gear down.

And if one is not going to make a flat surface or some sort, that's very bad news....

[sternone]

Have you flown with Andre yet in the Ovation 3?


Nopes, i guess he did not got the Ovation 3 yet... i just emailed him.

He told me he knew i wanted to buy your Mooney hahaha!! Go get an Acclaim ScooterBoy, so i can buy your Ovation2...

[englishal]

If I was going into a field I would without question land gear down.
But don't forget to bring the gear back up when you're at 20 knots or so to ensure you get a new engine from the insurance company ;)

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Read the POH. The Yak 52, for instance, requires that the gear be up for a forced landing.

[IO540]

The Yak 52, for instance, requires that the gear be up for a forced landing.

That is standard stuff in probably every POH.

So, do they recommend doing a normal landing with the gear up too? If not, why not? If done correctly, with a good dose of luck, they are one and the same.

But don't forget to bring the gear back up when you're at 20 knots or so to ensure you get a new engine from the insurance company

I would be fairly sure the insurer would make an adjustment for the # hours left on the old engine, in their payout, if this was significant in the overall figure.

I know you were pulling my leg :) but the hardest situation from the insurance POV is when something is damaged but only partially so that an "equivalent" replacement is not possible, and a financial compensation means you get some money but you are left with a damaged item.

This routinely happens on cars, where you may get the payout but you still end up with a (possibly not very well) repaired car. With a gear up landing, the engine is unlikely to be damaged at all (95%+ of shock load inspections show up no damage, even in cases where the prop blades got ripped right off the hub) but you "know" that there might be hidden cracks, and the market value of that engine is going to be for ever blighted... and you will never get compensation for that.

I fly with an ex shock loaded engine (pothole, prop only just touched) which then had a gold plated NDT job done by CSE, where everything including the crankcases was tested for cracks, mags overhauled, etc, but I still can't give that engine away... maybe could get a core value for it (peanuts, equiv. to a 10,000hr wreck destined for the exchange engine market).

No wonder so many people keep quiet about prop strikes.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

The Yak 52, for instance, requires that the gear be up for a forced landing.
That is standard stuff in probably every POH.

So, do they recommend doing a normal landing with the gear up too? If not, why not? If done correctly, with a good dose of luck, they are one and the same.
------------------------------------------------------

Think about it; Yak has a long spindly undercarriage. You put it down in a farmer's field, hit a pothole or a very soft patch and that noseleg collapses..... Aeroplane goes ar5e over t1t and pilot is trapped in the inverted machine. That's pretty bad, but if it then catches fire.... :uhoh:

Also, the Yak's wheels don't really retract. Land it on a good surface gear up, and it'll run along on the mains and the tail bumper. You can even use the brakes to stop. The prop will be trashed, but it's wooden so no damage to the engine (except in the West, when following such an event it will be deemed to be shock loaded). In Russia, they jack up the aeroplane, change the prop, and go flying.

I don't think those characteristics are common on most retractables, so why should their POHs say the same?:rolleyes:

[Flash0710]

True SSD!!!!
I asked a Yak driver who experienced a forced landing ,if he thought about lowering the gear and having a go. His reply was it did not even enter his mind. the POH says. so do what is printed and you may have a new machine replacing the one you bent...

not that we wanna do that at all eh.....?

tho i was told today to always keep the insurance cert on board just in case you want to fan the flames........:E
lotsaluv
and stay high...
f
xxxxx

[IO540]

Can a Yak operate from grass, at all?

[Pianorak]

IO540 - Sounds as if you've never been to White Waltham. :)

[IO540]

You are right - I don't do a lot of UK bimbling, especially stuff which can be driven in a car in less time.

But I do know Yaks do operate from grass, which is why I didn't get the blanket comment that a forced landing in a Yak would always be done gear UP.

It is correct that a pilot should do what the POH states, but then the POH is always written very much with liability in mind, and while the advice therein is valid, it is not the only valid point of view on a given situation.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

We operated our '52 off a very bumpy and often boggy Barton for a few years. Another group still do.

But bad though Barton's surface can be, there's nothing that will endanger the nose gear. The same cannot be said of an untried farmer's field in the event of a forced landing.

One of our members (not me!) did land gear-up unintenionally at Barton. The prop broke and the flaps got bent; other than that, the aeroplane was undamaged for the reasons I gave earlier. However, the engine was deemed shock loaded which added un-neccessarily a huge amount to the damage bill.:rolleyes:

SSD

[Cusco]

In a SEL retractable I'd always understood that putting the gear down for a (land) forced landing was the correct course of action as even if the surface was not suitable for the gear, as the mere act of ripping the gear off absorbed an enormous amount of kinetic energy and helped in slowing the a/c down.
Part of our Printed checklist for EFATO says:
5) gear up or down- Decide!;)
For a ditching: gear up obviously, but for our Arrow which has no means of disabling the auto extend feature, it means pax sitting pulling up on emergency gear extend lever to override auto extend as well as preparing for a face full of seawater...........
Cusco;)

[sternone]

For a ditching: gear up obviously, but for our Arrow which has no means of disabling the auto extend feature, it means pax sitting pulling up on emergency gear extend lever to override auto extend as well as preparing for a face full of seawater...........

And what does the POH of the arrow says about ditching ?

[Pilot_in_the_making]

I should point out that I don't fly retractable undercarraige yet, nor have I ever had to do a genuine forced landing, so I'm probably not in the best position to comment but:-

At the risk of sounding really square and boring. :8 The POH was put together by testing the aircraft to it's limits by pilots who are probably much more skilled than any of us, hence I would say that you stand a better chance of survival if you follow ''the book of infinate wisdom'' for your aircraft as this has been compiled from experience and trial and error.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can apply one rule to every aircraft and every situation because there are just so many variables (landing surface, weight of the aircraft, aircraft size, shape and design etc). I guess you as the PIC just have to make the best decision you can based on the circumstances and the information available to you, then hope its the right decision!

Yes as some people have pointed out it may cost more to repair (or maybe even right off the aircraft) if you land gear up, but I would like to repeat something my instructor told me on more than one occasion:-

''If the engine stops whilst you are still in the air, assume that the aircraft belongs to the insurance company and do whatever you have to in order to walk away from the wreckage alive. If the aircraft is repairable then great. If not, so what. Let the insurance company deal with the heap of s**t!!!!! That's what they do!'' :E

[Cusco]

Sternone:

Nada.

Cusco;)