PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Beaver Amphibian Down in Auckland Harbour
Old 5th Mar 2019, 14:46
  #16 (permalink)  
Pilot DAR
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
Age: 63
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it worked for me by requiring a positive action choice to set the wheel selector up or down (from neutral) to cancel the buzzer.
That certainly sounds better than other systems I have encountered. I can't denounce any safety systems which works. I just get nervous when a pilot shifts their commitment away from absolute (life threatening) diligence, to dependence upon a warning system. If the buzzer quits working (or an awesome noise canceling headset mutes it), will the pilot remember that they should have heard the buzzer, and did not?

Years back, I had to check myself out in a Piper Navajo, there was no one else around to fly it, so I was pointed toward it. Nice plane, no problem. But, I became aware that I was flying powered approaches, the plane seemed happy to be flown that way, but I was cheating myself out of a warning, and had not even noticed. The gear warning will only sound with the throttle leaver on the idle stops, by the time I'd pulled the power to idle, I was touching down, much too late to select gear then! Realizing my foolishness, thereafter, in addition to my manual discipline speaking the gear position and surface (which I'd been doing anyway), I also closed the throttles momentarily late final, just in case a functioning safety system was trying to warn me.

The Cessna Cardinal RG I used to rent suffered an engine failure in the circuit for another pilot (something about not enough fuel). It quit, he ran the drills - but a little too quickly. Sure, he extended the gear and flaps, but before either got to the desired position, he continued the drill, and turned off the master switch. Everything electrical stopped moving, and the warning horn was inoperative. The only thing which damages an RG more than landing it gear up, is landing it gear part way down. The tale was that he blabbered "I did not hear the gear horn". I believe him. We know that to do, the real demand is that we stop whatever is distracting us long enough to focus on killer checklist items.

Ultimately, the only system which works for me is the discipline of pausing no matter what on final, and observing the gear position, landing surface, and speaking them out loud. If I'm training someone in an amphib with a warning system, I still require them to do this, and if they wish, they may add: "and warning silent". Particularly with high time RG pilots, I have to untrain the mindless "Gear down". I had an airline pilot checklist this to me mindlessly during amphib training, so I asked him where he was going to land. After a puzzled moment, he figured out what I was getting at.

Whatever works, but no excuses for overlooking the most basic methods....
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