Originally Posted by
Fursty Ferret
Perfectly normal. Gear often dropped early when intercepting the final approach with a tailwind, for example. It's most useful at about 200kts - the gear doors provide significant short term drag and can be what you need to get flap 2 out. I wouldn't consider using it from 10,000 ft because the speed brakes are more effective at higher speeds. The noise in the cabin is astronomical if you drop them anywhere close to the limiting speed.
Neither of the videos shown above seem plausible to me.
Does anyone remember the 'High level Jet Penetration' approach at Frankfurt in the '70s? Over the VOR at F/L100, outbound on a radial for a teardrop to R/W25. Flying 1-11s we slowed down approaching the VOR because the gear doors were the limiting factor and once the gear was down and the doors closed again we speeded up. I think the track distance was about 18 miles and it was no problem but I may be wrong about the distance.