gopher01,
I assume by freefall of the MLG you are referring to the pulling of the handle on the forward face of the wheel well.
As I watched the Virgin 747 going round and round it triggered a memory of a nosewheel problem we had when I was on 48 at Changi. If some of the tech details have become blurred by the passage of time I trust one of out technical correspondents will correct me.
On September 9 1970 we arrived back at Changi after a night para sortie
to find that the nosegear was showing unlocked as we prepared to land.
I went under the flight deck and switched on the nose bay light and had a good look. It seemed down OK . There was a pin that protruded when the gear was locked down but it was so covered in muck that it was not possible to tell. After a crew conflab I put on a safety harness removed the inspection window and reached through to try to clean it. Being 'vertically challenged' I could not quite reach. So the Nav, a Flt Cdr with longer arms, came down and did so. It seemed fine.
However I also think he managed to put the nose gear pin in !
When we first got the 'K' the nose gear lock was a wedge shaped bit of kit.
The was later replaced with the simpler pin after a modification.
So we landed and gave to a/c to the ground crew to sort out what was obviously an indication problem.