Palm Springs Hawker belly landing

[Pilot DAR]

Watch as Plane Makes Belly Landing - NBC News (http://www.nbcnews.com/video/watch-as-plane-makes-belly-landing-580081731778)

Nice job!

[con-pilot]

From what I just heard, it was the left main gear that was offending landing gear, would not come out of the wheel well. The crew elected to do a gear up landing. Less damage to the aircraft due to the keel and more controllability.

I've never heard of a major accident with a gear up planned landing. I'm sure it has happened, but I cannot recall hearing of any.

A very well handled incident by the crew, good job.

I never had a gear up landing, thank God. However, I did have to land a T-34 when the nose gear refused to lock down and came close to having to land a 727 with the left main gear up when it decided not to extend with the emergency crank down system. Lost the A hydraulic system and with the loss of the A system the gear must be cranked down. A good kick on the handle took care of that and we were able to crank it down.

[Mike Echo]

I'm a huge fan of the Hawker which as people say is built like a tank, I've also heard it described as "Agricultural" in a complementary way.

Skid worked as designed 45 years ago - Replace Skid (plus any belly aerials), probably flaps, flap hinges. Should hopefully be all bolt on with some crack checking. Just unknown would be any secondary damage plus investigation of failure.
Back in the early 80's I was slightly involved with a Hawker 700 where they elected to land with just right main and nose, it was done successfully but about 18 inches of the left underwing skin had to be replaced which wasn't a 5 minute bolt on job. I seem to remember it was caused by a blocked hydraulic return line.

Mike Echo