Midland A320 with possible gear problem at LHR
 

If I have the misfortune to encounter this, please can I have this crew flying and the same ATC team too. Very cool, no drama and thankfully no problem in the end.

Was this about 1700 ish BST this afternoon? I saw\it climbing westbound with the gear down.Lgciu prob?

Yes, that sounds about the right time.

BD338 LHR-MME GMIDO.
Returned to LHR as the crew were unable to raise the gear.
Emergency landing was thankfully uneventful.

Good News
 

Best way not being able to retract than the other way, once down keep it down until investigated.

Well done to all cannot be easy at places like Heathrow at that time of day on a Friday, hope all who was held up understood:ok:

I'm sure there's a genuine reason, but since living near Heathrow for the last 2 years, I've seen over half a dozen A319/20/21's way out over Windsor way, climbing away from Heathrow with gear extended

And I mean heading out of sight with the gear still down. Almost seemed like one every week for a couple of months

is this something 'major' - this happens everywhere - is it just because its in London its of interest :confused:

Its standard procedure when one of the brake tacheometers is u/s. The gear is left down for one minute after departure to allow it to stop spinning (the normal automatic brake application before retraction doesn't work) before you raise it. Flying around with the gear stuck down is actually no big deal unless the air/ground logic thinks you're still on the ground at which point it gets a bit more interesting with no AP, A/THR or FDs! Raw data flying practice when you least want it!

EGLD take a look at these threads...

Landing gear retraction times


777 gear still down after take off?

it WAS very interesting!! Aircraft did think it was still on ground so all automatics lost for duration of flight...best practise EVER for the sim! ATC were fantastic and kept turns/frequency changes to minimum to help out. Thanks to all involved (if any of them ever read this, of course!)

That may be, but it can be very useful to have these incidents discussed here.

I'd never considered that the aircraft logic might think it was still on the ground and what that might do to the flight deck workload.
In these days when there is practically no pilot/atc liason and certainly no feedback from these incidents to atc, I find pprune the only place I can pick up this information.

Many thanks to SNAFU AGAIN and HAND SOLO for taking the time to respond constructively.

Not a problem! Did give me a wake up when you wanted vectors after departure. :ok:

Your licence says 'RAD', GT3, you got a chance to use it!!! ;)

It's good I did a radar course eh! Imagine if they stopped aerodrome only atco's from getting a radar rating at the college....oh wait that's what they have done!

This is not the first time this has happened to an airbus.It is about time the manufacturer devised an alternate logic for the aircraft to think it is airborne and give you some autoflight.It might have been a different situation if LHR had been in LVP:}

Asfkap I lost you after the third word!One of my companys '320s took off in lvp from the south of the uk and had a gear problem similiar to the midland and ended up in Manchester due to no afs!:}

The airbus needs to know what phase of flight it is in for most things to work as advertised (taxi, take-off to 1500ft, take-off after 1500 ft etc). All hell is let loose on the crew with myriad warnings (eg TOO LOW GEAR) when you select gear up and the plane knows it is airborne (ie not on the ground with weight on gear) but the computers think it is in another phase of flight (like cruise, approach, landing).

I suppose you couldn't fit another switch (guarded of course) in-between all the "glassware" to say "Yes, we really ARE off the ground"?

"No AP, no AT" - I don't suppose that the 2 guys up front could "fly" the thing?

("Dinosaur speaking - best to ignore ;) )

Do modern day airline pilots not have the ability to fly RAW DATA anymore??:E

You may make that comment in jest, but the truth is less amusing. :\