Typhoon Wheels-up Trial in China Lake?

[Geezers of Nazareth]

There's a picture of it, albeit under covers, as it arrived at Coningsby.

(Not my photo, so credit where it's due)

[GPMG]

Would it be possible to have two beacons that emmit a signal at each end of the runway? Both on the landing / take off path. Name them beacon #1 and #2 for example.

Beacon #1 nearer the runway at both ends. That way the aeroplane would always pass the beacons in the order of 1 > 2 on take off and 2 > 1 on landing. Beacons are positioned at a set distance from the runway and any aeroplane that is at a set height , speed range and passes the beacons in the 2 > 1 order will know that it is on a landing approach. The system then interogates the landing gear selector and if it is at 3 reds, and at a speed that would indicate the intention of landing it will automatically deploy the landing gear.

I don't know if this is in place already but surely this system would save £69 mill whenever someone makes an unfortunate mistake?

If this has already been thought of then I apologise for wasting time.

[Cows getting bigger]

Why make things so complicated? I believe Piper did something with their GA aircraft over 40 years ago. It was a system that compared airspeed against power setting and if you were slow with low power, it would drop the wheels.


Alternatively, put a chap in a caravan at the end of the runway.

[airborne_artist]

Or pay a couple of people to sit in a wagon to one side of the threshold with a Very pistol that they fire if they can't see the Dunlops dangling.

It may have been done before - I'm not sure

[Seldomfitforpurpose]

Or maybe just employ pilots who can run a check list without error, wonder if the chap in question still has what it takes to make 3*

[CirrusF]

This has been a very interesting thread. I'd guess that not one in a hundred posters here has seen a Typhoon cockpit, and probably less than one in a thousand has any access to the facts of this incident. Nevertheless, various people have blamed the pilot or the design, or both, and have advocated stopping pay or even, somehow, pulled Prince William into the debate.

Give it a rest! I know it's rumour network, but this is beyond a joke. Accept it, you don't know what happened and for most of you, you never will.

You appear to be suggesting that this incident might not have been pilot error, and that you perhaps have some sort of insider knowledge to suggest that we should not pre-judge the pilot.

I have no idea about the inside of a Typhoon cockpit, but I assume that in a £69m(?) jet there are are at least the same level of systems to warn the pilot of a potential wheels up landing that exist in a 1950s vintage steam powered piston single? Even in the highly unlikely case that these systems failed, in most aircraft the pilot can hear the gear extending, then feel the change in position of the centre of drag both longitudinally (by change of yaw trim) and vertically (by change of pitch trim). So is the Typhoon is exceptional? I doubt it, but await to be proved wrong..

The airframe in happier days:
ZJ943 - Royal Air Force - Eurofighter EF-2000 Typhoon FGR.4 - Planespotters.net Just Aviation

[5 Forward 6 Back]

Some aircraft even have a caption that lights if you're within a regime that it thinks looks like you're attempting to land. I find it hard to believe Typhoon doesn't have something similar, but until the reports are all released we won't know if it failed/was ignored/or what.

[GPMG]

So just out of interest for me. Is there something akin to my idea or should I send off the patent now?

I guess that like my 2 other great ideas, it will be put into production 2 years later without me having applied for the patent beforehand.

[Fox_4]

Everyone makes mistakes, even in a jet that is supposedly very clever! If it was even his fault?!
Why does everyone get so wound round the axle over something that they have probably only seen parked at an airshow or called a GR4 by a defence expert in The Sun.

Even as a fellow pilot I cant atually give 2 hoots if it cost x million quid and wrote off a pod! Did the guy survive - yes. Excellent. If we need more aircraft/pods for Ops Im sure we will buy them anyway. The money is spent already, stop bleating.

Dont give me the tax payer line as Im bored with that too. I dont exactly notice the decrease on my payslip so again - bzzzzzzzzzzzz. Flippant - yes.

Isnt there more important things going on in your life than starting rumours on something you clearly know <1% of actual facts about. Just a question.

Oh well. Other than that this topic is reeeeeeeeally interesting.


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[Finger Poking]

Fox 4 - If bored, don't post.

[Sospan]

Thats just what we need fox4, pilots that dont give a toss!

I hope you are proud of that post.

[BSweeper]

Having had something to do with the Typhoon cockpit design several years ago, the Phase of Flight moding is associated with deployment of the gear. So, when the gear is selected down, the main displays (which are very prominent compared to previous FJ cockpits) change radically to indicate a phase change to landing PoF.

Now, I am not saying that it is true in this case, but is possible that pilots will tend to associate gear down with main display change whereas the only true sign (ie safety critical) is the gear indicator.

By the way, the very clever comment (not mine) regarding cheese holes lining up is a reference to James Reason's "Swiss Cheese" model of human failure - try Googling it, its very interesting. If you read his book, you will find that human failure (for whatever reason - no pun) is inevitable no matter what. Chernoble is an obvious example.

By the way, Typhoon has a triplex redundant Weight on Wheels indication certified to a failure rate of less than 10-6.

[L J R]

...or take the pilot out and call it a UCAV....

[H Peacock]

Even as a fellow pilot I cant atually give 2 hoots if it cost x million quid and wrote off a pod! Did the guy survive - yes. Excellent. If we need more aircraft/pods for Ops Im sure we will buy them anyway. The money is spent already, stop bleating.

Fox 4, are you honestly saying that you don't give "2 hoots" if you are even partly responsible for the loss of an expensive aircraft/system? If so, then best you don't ever fly as aircraft Captain and sign an F700 again.

[glad rag]

??

So according to Wiki a Typhoon costs £68.9 Million.

How much does it cost to train a Pilot to fly one?

[AdLib]

A lot less than it costs us to pay for all them MPs other houses. It's got care-free handling, innit.

Peraps that's care-free as in not giving 2 hoots.

[CirrusF]

Jimpie -

So just out of interest for me. Is there something akin to my idea or should I send off the patent now?

Your idea would work, but it is an unnecesary and expensive complication which requires a ground installation.

There are already simple autonomous features built into any aircraft (even knackered old 1950s spamcans, let alone a state-of the-art FJ) to remind forgetful pilots to lower the gear.

For reasons best studied in a human factors course, even the best trained pilots still occasionally manage to forget the gear, and then manage to remain oblivious to the warning signs. Adding another expensive system won't necessarily remedy the occasional wheels-up landing.

[AIDU]

Sorry, but hasn't this been done to the point of boredom in the previous 6 pages?

[Brian Abraham]

Little comment required.

[BEagle]

I am told there are two kinds of Pilot.


Those who have landed with the gear still up and those who haven't...........yet.

Sorry, that might have been true 60 years ago, but not today. It's one of those silly statements often trotted out by some (not you, airpolice, I hasten to add - as itwas something you 'were told') to sound wisely avuncular.

In about 10000 hrs, the only wheels-up approaches I made were deliberate:

• In a F4 at the behest of the QFI in the back who was specifically tasked to check the RW caravan chap - who spotted it and fired his red.
• In a VC10K whilst playing Bloggs for a fellow QFI, to show how easy it was to become lulled into complacency. I distracted him downwind with 'Bloggs questions' about circuit spacing and ground features, then didn't ask for 'Gear down, landing checks' at the normal point, just 'flap approach'. Of course the rest of the crew had been pre-briefed; normally the Air Engineer at least would have issued a firm warning and the Navigator would have queried the absence of the landing checklist request.

I'm not saying that I was in some way a superior pilot immune from inadvertent wheels-up approaches as I certainly wasn't! But training and aircraft are nowadays such that a casual human error should NOT lead to a gear up landing. Heck, even the Hunter had a warning to tell you if you had less than 1/3 throttle with the wheels up...... So to say that all pilots have either landed wheels up or are someday going is to insult the training excellence of the RAF - and is clearly bolleaux.

I only knew of a pilot who had actually made 2 wheels up approaches - both of which had been successfully thwarted by the switched on chap in the wheeled greenhouse at the end of the RW. He became a navigator.

I was told that it wasn't unknown in the old days ('back in the day' in yoof-speak) for a pilot who had managed to land gear up to be posted to fly the Beverley, Twin Pin or Chipmunk to avoid a second occurence....