BE 76 duchess

[Dan D]

Originally Posted by rug-rats

The duchess actually uses pitot pressure to prevent you retracting the gear on the ground as apposed to weight like most light twins.

So in theory in very strong winds when tied down the gear could be fooled into retracting?

No, unless the wind is about 55 Kts and you decided to pull the gear handle up. An example of how it works. You come to the airport, do your preflight inspection, but forget to pull a pitot tube cover off. You taxi for take off and everything seems OK. When you accelerate for take off, you notice the airspeed indicator doesn’t work. If the runway is short and you can’t stop any more, you have to continue. The plane lifts off, you pull the gear lever up, and you hear a buzzer! The gear doesn’t retract, you have 3 green indicator lights on. To stop the buzzer sound, you have to move the gear lever down again. Now you have to fly a pattern and and land. After that, pull that pitot cover off making sure nobody seas you. 😊 That’s the reason why you have to verify “Airspeed alive” on take off roll. This plane can be easily flown without an airspeed indicator, simply by numbers, sound and feel. That means that you really have to know the plane well. I owned a BE-76 for 14 years and know a guy to whom that happened. When a fire truck full of guys he knew pulled by him, his face was red. How do I know that? I looked in a mirror. 😂