Originally Posted by
Milvus Milvus
From elsewhere...
"If you lower the L/G above 260kts, the L/G Safety valve will prevent the Green HYD from lowering the gear, but the L/G Lever will go down. Now once below 260kts, will the L/G come down on its own? Or does the Lever need to be recycled?"
That's a very good question. If we believe an old FCOM, the lever has to be recycled to get the gear down below 260kts. The valve won't open if the lever just stays down when the speed goes below 260kts.
That would be a very good explanation for the gear up landing (lever down at high speed to increase drag, but gears stay up). Then the alarm priority kept the "too low gear" off until flare, to late to avoid contact...
ECAM L/G GEAR NOT DOWNLOCKED will appear if gear sequence is not completed after 30 seconds. (for any reason)
FCOM says to recycle gear handle in that situation. The CRC can be silenced and the ECAM can be cleared purposely or inadvertently.
A few years back I had an airplane where the safety valve stuck in the closed position. To say the least it was quite a shock when I called for Gear down to the FO and it failed to come down. I don’t know how any pilot could miss that cacophony and light show. At the time the procedure was to recycle the gear handle up to five times. On the third try it came down.
i don’t think in this case that happened.