Undercarriage problem

[silicon chip]

Hi All,
I haven't posted for a few years on the site and never oin this forum so if this is the wrong place then please advise where I shoud post this kind of question.
I came in to LHR last night. When we took off the pilot dropped the undercariage shortly after raising it. He came over the intercom to tell us there was an over temp warning and he'd dropped it to cool off.
The landing was interesting. We seemed to come in at a shallow angle with flaps set similar to take-off. We hit quite hard & the braking time seemed shorter than normal. I'd have thought that if there was any possibility of overheating on landing, the best approach would have been as slow as poss with lots of flap.
Anyone care to comment on the standard procedure in this event.

[BOAC]

Some aircraft have temperature sensors in the wheel bay and/or brakes. If an 'overheat' warning is received, it may be that the procedure is to lower the u/c for a while. If you could tell us which aircraft type it was we may be able to expend on this. Also we do not know how long the fligt was. It is possible that the temperatures were normal at the end of the flight.

Basically not enough information!

[silicon chip]

Thanks BOAC. This was an A320-200 MUC -> LHR. I understand the procedure for lowering to cool off but I'm just wondering about the landing scenario - less than normal flap, with what appeared to be quite a slow shallow approach.
Thanks.

[Rainboe]

So it was a 'slow' approach then? Maybe you did not assess the flap setting correctly? Disabuse yourself that anybody would do a shallow approach. Every approach an aeroplane flies is at the same descent angle- about 3 degrees (unless it's a really quiet approach, with no engine noise at all, when it will be quite steep).

[eightyknots]

And..........If it had less flap, the approach speed would actually be faster.

[AlanM]

If it is quiet at LHR then aircraft are given visual/straight in approaches - where they dive in just above the glide.

Very hard to guess the settings/approach rate as a pax though.

[Rainboe]

EVERYBODY aims to stay on the correct glidepath. If you go low, you will blow a noise violation or hit something, or be immediately reported in pprune as 'low and dangerous flying'. If you go above, you will probably get reported by your flight recorder and have an unpleasant interview with the flight manager for exceeding rate of descent near the ground. WHATEVER defect you have, you always carry out a normal on-glidepath aproach at normal speeds. Very, very infrequently, it is possible that a no-flaps landing at high speed is carried out, STILL on the normal glidepath. But nobody should ever think any pilot intentionally flies a steeper approach or a shallower approach that a normal glidepath for whatever reason- it just does not happen, so please all try and not imply any pilot ever flew steeper or shallower approaches EVER. Never ever......Understood?