Q7: Unusable runway or rate of climb?

[GoneWest]

Light piston, complex, aircraft - "Rotate". Positive rate of climb.!!

Undercarriage up when "no more usable runway" (consider Manchester or Heathrow as well as local, private, "short strip" airfield) - or undercarriage up with positive rate of climb, looking for better climb performance due less drag, arguably higher when leaving airfield boundary (better chance of getting back with an engine failure - also better for noise abatement)>

Comments for or against??

[tacpot]

There has been a suprising lack of comment to Qs 5 & 7. So I will get this rolling with my (non-Instructor) comment:

Gear down until landing on is not possible. This is a safety concern and therefore outweights ANY other concern including noise abatement.

This should be part of the (self-)brief prior to take-off - "I will leave the u/c down until we have passed point X."

[eyeinthesky]

See my response to your question about hands on throttles: Leave the wheels down until there is no possibility of landing back on or until positive ROC is achieved, whichever is the later.

[john_tullamarine]

The "leave the gear down until wherever" is a fine philosophy .. but I have seen many pilots delay retraction until a point well beyond which the aircraft could be put back on the runway and achieve any sort of significant speed reduction ..... no easy answer to this problem I suspect ...

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Hi John:

This is a touchy one.

I use the positive rate of climb gear up method. The sooner you get the airplane clean the better your performance in the event an engine fails.

There may be some merit in leaving the gear down in airplanes that have very poor single engine performance such as the Piper Seneca 1. However it still has its negatives unless the runway is very long such as Harare Zimbawbe at 15500 feet long.

My method is still ...positive rate of climb and gear up... at least if I do lose an engine I will have a clean airplane, if it won't fly *u*k it land straight ahead and grind to a stop on level ground... hopefully.

I once had to feather at about fifty feet, and clean the thing climbed away quite safely. ( DC3 )

Conversley an engine failure in a light twin with poor performance is guaranteed to go to hell in a hurry with the gear down.

Cat Driver:

[Centaurus]

Chuck. You are dead right. I presume we are talking about twins here. There is going to be a five or ten second period after lift off where its anyone's guess which way an engine failure decision could go. It is well nigh impossible to peer over the edge of the coaming (especially at night or in heavy rain) and decide that you have sufficient runway remaining to land ahead.

As you rightly say, far better to select gear up in the normal point at positive rate of climb and play your cards from there - especially as the situation improves with each second of accelleration.