Aircraft recovery the Australian way.
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Oh... My... God...!
Do you realize that this could be as inflammatory as my blundering into using the term "Fraternity"!
We are dealing with pilots after all
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Samuel Johnson
Melvyn Bragg (Baron Bragg) the BBC broadcaster pointed out in the TV series “The Adventure of English,” Johnson is a British term for the male appendage, named after Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 – 13 December 1784), often referred to as Dr. Johnson, who would "stand up to anything."
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Early on in my flying career, I met a very vocal frenchman in the bar at High Wycombe who described how at the start of his take-off roll he would always select 'gear up', as the squat switches would always delay the gear retraction until the aircraft had left the ground. Even with my freshly minted PPL in my hand and no time in complex aircraft, I felt quite certain that that sounded a bit too "jimmy-the-hoover" to be true and assumed that all runways will always be perfectly flat - but didn't feel qualified to debate the point.
Irritatingly, I've yet to see his name come up in an AAIB report, thus proving the point - I wonder if he moved to New Zealand?
Irritatingly, I've yet to see his name come up in an AAIB report, thus proving the point - I wonder if he moved to New Zealand?
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bob johns
gear up landings gear collapse on take off ? theres them wot has and them wot will and them wot will again !! I have been retired from flying for 21 years now after 25 years in the industry and Never scratched an aeroplane in 12843 hours and 7 minutes. the above missive was ,advice to me from A VERY senior wartime ex RAAF officer one Group Captain Brian (Black Jack ) Walker DSO who I had the privelidge to do two round trips SY GV SY (about 25 hr round trip each )in a P166 (Piaggio) I wasnt bloody game to bust an aeroplane with him as a mentor and have to admit it ! H e had 50 years and 10 prangs.
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that whole TB20 video was wrong,.... from the amazingly shrill noise of the horn through the unbelievable approach pofile,... through to calmly walking around a damaged plane which quite clearly had fuel leaking out of it....
The Raglan crash is a bit sad... nice mooney.. good to see the New Zealand number 8 wire method of chocking the gear employed.
The Raglan crash is a bit sad... nice mooney.. good to see the New Zealand number 8 wire method of chocking the gear employed.
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that whole TB20 video was wrong,.... from the amazingly shrill noise of the horn through the unbelievable approach pofile,... through to calmly walking around a damaged plane which quite clearly had fuel leaking out of it....
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Going back to the TB20, I thought the P2 said, just post-impact:
"Je disais peut-etre c'est trop vite, c'est trop ???."
"I was saying it is perhaps too fast, it is too ???."
Then the P1 gets out, has a look and says "Bordel" (brothel), which is a "colloquialism". He might have been referring to the state of the aircraft, or perhaps just the P2's sense of timing.
Would any native French speakers care to correct / fill in the gap(s)?
Edited to add:
The "time-stamp fairy" has put me only one post out of sequence. Not bad...
"Je disais peut-etre c'est trop vite, c'est trop ???."
"I was saying it is perhaps too fast, it is too ???."
Then the P1 gets out, has a look and says "Bordel" (brothel), which is a "colloquialism". He might have been referring to the state of the aircraft, or perhaps just the P2's sense of timing.
Would any native French speakers care to correct / fill in the gap(s)?
Edited to add:
The "time-stamp fairy" has put me only one post out of sequence. Not bad...
Last edited by 24Carrot; 24th Nov 2011 at 21:37.
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It "almost" looks like the engine was approaching TBO, the prop was due for an overhaul, but the owner didn't know that the insurance will pay only for the shock load inspection portion of the cost of a new engine 
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...another valuable and expert opinion there...
HA! while your re-painting the underside... how about..
~£10k for a new 3B prop (if sourced from the USA; more if you need an EASA-1 form)
~£10k for a shock load inspection done by a reputable shop (+/- according to what worms they find, because once you open an engine you can't reassemble it unless it complies with all the requirements... and this engine was probably not a low hour one because the plane is a GT whose mfg stopped ~ 2002 (it's the same one I have) so they will likely go for a full OH ... £20k
~£10k for transport and repairing the underside, including replacement of several antennae (ADF, transponder, DME)
Back to the original incident
I've flown both the four-seat and single-seat Mooneys with the manual gear. Although I only have a pilot's understanding of the system, I'm pretty sure that the none of the landing gears can be someplace where the gear handle is not. There is no squat switch. The gear is not only raised and lowered by the gear handle, it is locked in both the down and up position by the handle by a latch on the instrument panel (down) and one on the floor (up). The only way that the gear could have retracted as shown is that the handle was not locked in the gear-down position and moved to the gear-up position. My guess is that the pilot intended to execute a very snappy takeoff (always a possibility when a camera is known to be rolling) with a immediate gear retraction after liftoff and therefore started the takeoff roll with the handle unlocked or unlocked it during the takeoff roll. He might have thought that because it takes some effort to pull the handle back and down to raise the gear (if that's confusing, see MANUAL LANDING GEAR ) that the gear would not come up on its own. If he was bright enough to realize that the nose gear was going to be trying to retract itself and the main gear during the takeoff roll, he might have been holding the unlocked handle forward. In that event, I don't know whether the nose gear overwhelmed him as the speed increased or he let go of the gear handle for some reason. However, once the nose gear got the handle going aft, the force on it from the main gear as the airplane settled helped complete the process.
I've flown both the four-seat and single-seat Mooneys with the manual gear. Although I only have a pilot's understanding of the system, I'm pretty sure that the none of the landing gears can be someplace where the gear handle is not. There is no squat switch. The gear is not only raised and lowered by the gear handle, it is locked in both the down and up position by the handle by a latch on the instrument panel (down) and one on the floor (up). The only way that the gear could have retracted as shown is that the handle was not locked in the gear-down position and moved to the gear-up position. My guess is that the pilot intended to execute a very snappy takeoff (always a possibility when a camera is known to be rolling) with a immediate gear retraction after liftoff and therefore started the takeoff roll with the handle unlocked or unlocked it during the takeoff roll. He might have thought that because it takes some effort to pull the handle back and down to raise the gear (if that's confusing, see MANUAL LANDING GEAR ) that the gear would not come up on its own. If he was bright enough to realize that the nose gear was going to be trying to retract itself and the main gear during the takeoff roll, he might have been holding the unlocked handle forward. In that event, I don't know whether the nose gear overwhelmed him as the speed increased or he let go of the gear handle for some reason. However, once the nose gear got the handle going aft, the force on it from the main gear as the airplane settled helped complete the process.
An equally possible and IMO more likely scenario is that the landing gear down latch simply failed........
