Gear up or Down??

[balance ball]

Can anybody shed some light on why an a/c may climb out after take off with its landing gear down?

I have just done my usual crawl around the M25 at rush hour and noticed a BA B757 on climb out from runway 27 doing just this. I watched the a/c until it disappeared from view, still with its gear down and I thought this was a bit unusual. (I even managed to look without causing a pile up!)

I would be grateful for any thoughts/theories/explanations.....

[4Screwaircrew]

Sitting in the back of an A 300 we were told that because a brake unit was locked out the undercarriage would not be raised for one minute after take off in accordance with the configuration deviation list, what you witnessed may have been a similar thing. Allowing the aircraft to operate safely with the remaining units.

[EGGW]

Ferry flight, gear locked down. Hot brakes, so gear left down for cooling, just two possibilities.

[pigboat]

Blows all the accumulated cr@p off if the runway was slushy on take-off.

[None]

Perhaps an MEL limitation with a wheel well fire detector loop inop. I don't recall the actual amount of time the gear has to remain extended.

[canadair]

Gear pins? <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> . .no, the worlds fav would never do that,. .probably brakes

[5150]

A BA 747 once took off out of Heathrow in the early 90's with the pin still in place, resulting in a rather embarrassing return back to the stand and a visit to the chief pilot's office.

So 'the worlds favourite' as you say, have been known to make this mistake!

[SuperRanger]

bb,

on the b777, when the gears are raise, braking is apply to the wheel to stop the spinning. if the airplane is going to be despatch with a brake deactivated by capping the hydraulic line to the brake (this could be due to brake failure on the particular wheel or its antiskid module, etc), the the gears would have to be left down to allow the wheels to spin-down (2 mins). obviously, performance penalty would have to be applied (reducing takeoff weight) in the event of an engine failure after takeoff.

hope this helps...SR

[mcrit]

I think that SR has the most likely answer. As per 757 MEL 2 Mins for spin down before retraction.

[LeadSled]

All,. .Most times I've done that over the years, it's because I forgot, but nobody seems to have thought this a possible reason here. . .After all ----. No, perish the thought. . .Tootle pip