Originally Posted by
Fursty Ferret
That's a Boeing-ism anyway. The Airbus call is "positive climb" which I've always taken to mean VSI, altimeter, and radio altimeter all showing a climb.
It doesn't reall matter what you say: "Rate", "climb", whatever. The important thing is that things don't need to be
rushed when it comes to clean up the plane. There is absolutely no need at all to retract the gear at the earliest possible moment, especially not during the (now mostly practised) noise abatement climbouts, which are done at V2+10kt (or 20). There is no danger of exceeding the gear retraction speed during that kind of initial climb, and the drag of the extended gear is no big factor at low speeds either, even in an engine-out scenario. So just wait as long as it takes to see
all needels/tapes (altimeter, VSI, radio altimeter) pointing upward, wait another second or two or three (sometimes things change...) and then stretch out your hand towards the gear lever.
But I don't think that premature raising of the gear is a factor in this accident. It rather looks as if it was never down.