emergency gear extenstions

[Throbba]

Hey people,
Just doing an engineering paper for the Seneca and it's the first multi-engine aircraft i've seen that has a max IAS to conduct an emergency gear extension below blue line, is this odd or a regular occurence?

[A and C]

This is not unusual when you free fall the gear it some times will not lock down if you do it at a higher than published airspeed.
Some time back (about 3 years) i wrote to the CAA,s GASIL following a piece they did on the PA34 landing gear, this was the combined wisdom of three long time GA engineers who have all seen most of the problems of opreating this landing gear and would make interesting reading for you.

[Throbba]

Thanks for your reply A and C, I would be very interested in that article. Many thanks

[Stan Evil]

If you're on one engine and you can't get the gear down, you're having a really bad day but, when you think about it, blue line is not really an issue. Emergency gear extension will be needed on the way down rather than in the climb. Gear extension speed will certainly be above min asymmetric control speed and, even then, there should be no need to have lots of power on when you lower the gear. Flying the aircraft below blue line is not a problem as long as you've got a bit of height to accelerate back to it if you need to climb.