Lunchtime today at MAN a PIA B777 departed and left his gear down. ATC noted this and queried if there was a problem. PIA responded with ' we are following a procedure '

The only procedure I can come up with is a wheel well fire ( land asap ) or a tyre burst, but nothing was reported. Any ideas?

ever had a brake unit capped off ? (as in de-activated) ????

not only fire, but also heat, ice and slush are reasons to delay retractions
Maybe brakes were hot?

Similar thread a few months ago about BA 767 doing this out of Heathrow, have a search.

I can't remember the reasons but it was nothing to worry about.

Yeah its usually hot brakes. You sometimes lower the gear after the retraction to cool them.

Although, it could have been a burst wheel etc. What are they going to do, dump fuel and return to MAN, or continue to Pakistan for a precautionary landing. Engineering would be much cheaper there! And after all, a burst wheel would not be classed as an emergency until its time to land!!

Hello all from what rember on B767 ADP inop air demand pump for the hydraulic . MEL asks for landing gear down 2 mins after takeoff its cos no auto braking on gear retraction . Maybe its same on B777

Back in the Golden Days I had something similar happen with an Air France Airbus at Heathrow. I said: "your gear is still down". He said: "Affirmative, we use it for the take-off".

I think what skibeagle is getting at, quite correctly, is that they could have had one of their brake units deactivated. In this case, procedures will vary slightly, but in general the wheel in question won't be braked on gear retraction as it normally would be. So you leave them down for a bit (2 minutes if memory serves) to allow the wheel to slow down a bit before you retract the gear, as described above by Joe.

Cheers all

The nose-wheel "snubbers" were u/s most probably. You have to leave the gear down for two minutes to allow the wheels to spin down, rather than rubbing against the non-existent "snubbers". It kills performance.

They might have forgotten them, wouldn't be the first time!

Eeeek

Hi

I saw that incident, quite scary actually!!

Sam

Yeah, the procedure for gear pins still in (I'm joking, I know nothing of the incident!)

Heathrow Director - Excellent! Not enought of that kind of banter on the RT nowadays if you ask me

I've seen a few GFA A320's do something like it here on Oman OOMS .. I thought it was quite strange at first. But the response I got from the pros was .. "Hotwheels"

Sam
"scary"
were you in the cockpit or the cabin or the tower or the airport fence or just driving by in you car ?

Sam

What is "Quite scary actually" about an aircraft flying with it's gear down? This is normal for aircraft, especially after take-off and before landing


CC

Chaps

Its the first time id seen something like that, so when you see an aircraft that takes off normally and retracts the landing gear after a few secounds and then you get an other aircraft that hasnt put the landing gear up for a good 3-4 minutes.

Ye it is quite scary, ill agree that scary is probably the wrong word but i was in a hurry.

So to who i have offended. sorry

Sam

As long as the take-off's been calculated to account for the increased drag from leaving the gear down longer, shouldn't be anything to worry about. Unless near the WAT limit, 'flexing' or obstacle-limited, of course. Then it might be more interesting....

Pia have had a spate of fires due to the incorrect grease being used. When this was happening they left the gear down for a while after take off. Could be related to this or something similar.
As an aside, i watched a pia 747 depart 24l at man (cool evening, wind down the runway) whilst out running along the footpaths. they rotated well into the touchdown zone of 6r and struggled in the air. couldnt have been more than 1000 feet when turning to the east on the desig departure.( i.e very wide right downwind position) Normally loaded aircraft usually about 3/5 grand at that point.

Only a matter of time. Stretching the use of standard weights to incredible levels i'd wager, looking at the reality of the baggage at their checkin.

in case you have one or two brakes deavtivated, you have to leave the gear extended after T/O for a minimum of 2 minutes. this is to let the wheel spin down before retracting.
having brakes deactivated has also heavy penalties on T/O performance, with one deactivated you loose about 5 tons with two almost 10 tons.

No need to change the take-off figures. The whole thing is based on an engine failing at V1, if that engine is still runnning past V1 you will meet the required climb gradients and clearances easily even with the gear down, if a engine fails whilst the gear is down you would select it up anyway. There are however big penalties for departing with the gear locked down which is a different situation.