BEXIL160

Hello all,

Sat in a nice looking Mooney M20 today, but am puzzled by the .. ahem.. Undercarriage Lever.

Beneath the throttle and prop controls, is a large vertical tubular bar with a red metal pate on top of it. This, my guide told me is the U/C lever. And lever it is.

Question. How does it work then? Manual hydraulics?


Can some wise soul let me know please

Thanks.

BEX

P.S. Went to Kerville Tx. once, in the mid 1990s and went round the Mooney factory. Don't remember big U/c levers.

scooter boy

I operate an M20-R and can only imagine that what you were looking at was the emergency manual gear extension handle. This is a red coloured metal thing with a cover over it to prevent inadvertent activation.
This is more usually situated on the floor of the aircraft aft of fuel tank selector and the manual trim wheel and lets you get the wheels down if the electric mechanism fails.

The usual gear lever (in recent aircraft) is grey coloured, wheel shaped and on the panel either just under the glare shield or just above the bottom of the panel but within easy reach of the pilot's right hand.

SB

stiknruda

More years ago than I care to remember , I flew an M20C out of Andrau in Houston. (Does that still exist - it must be sky-scraper City by now?)

It had a very similar arrangement to the one that you describe BEX. IIRC The red bit is the safety gate.

You move that out of the way, and then p.. pu...pull the lever toward the tail, as it gets to about 45 degreesfrom vertical, you roll your wrist around and push it down to horizontal - this manually retracts the gear. Scooter boy - you are so fortunate as this is the only system on the C model! And it is bloody difficult. There is a low gear op speed but as you get near it, the difficult procedure is made more difficult by drag.

I did about 50 take offs and landings in that 20C and although I loved the x-country performance, I always worried about getting the gear up AND getting self and pax through the single door in a hurry, if I failed to get it down!!

Hope that helps

Stik

Miserlou

As Stik describes it is the normal operating gear lever as fitted to earlier models. It was designed this way to avoid unintended gear retraction.

I seem to remember it could remove skin from the knuckles if one wasn't careful.

BEXIL160

Thanks v much for the hows and whys.

Yes indeed it was a Mooney M20C "Mark21" (or so it said). Actually I kinda like the big chunky lever, It's difficult to forget I suppose.... Reds Blues GREENS (look down and right yep, the crowbar is Vertical and locked).

I also suppose after a while your right arm muscles develop, or you get fed up with it.

time to make inquires about flying it.....

Thanks again

BEX

pithblot

I have a vague memory from at least forty years ago, of riding in the back seat of a Mooney. I was four or five and I'm not sure what stage of the flight this occurred but I reached forward and dislodged whatever held the lever in place. The wheels then went into free fall and the lever,attached to the wheels, smashed into Dad's right elbow. I think it did more than take a bit of skin off!

Whenever Dad told this story he would always accompany it with a tale of watching through the open cockpit door of a DC3 bounding down the runway as the Captain smacked the Co-Pilot's hand away from the gear lever! (The point being that the new Co-Pilot wanted to retract the wheels while still on the ground).

Years later I used to ponder the prospect of flying along happily above the cloud and a hand (attached to a very long arm) would sneak past the C/B panel towards the STOP buttons!

Cheers - PITHBLOT

M20 Man

I Fly an M20C and after you have got used to the Johnson Bar (which is what the yanks call it) It is a great system simple foolproof and very reliable.

As for gear retraction and extension speeds those are slowish at 120mph but with ractise its simple. Antway the point about a Mooney is speed and economy.