Aircraft 1st flights!
 

Maybe a stupid and obvious questions but when companies (Boeing, Airbus, etc) conduct their FIRST flight of a new type why do they keep the gear down and then retract it maybe 1 hour into the flight?

To first make sure nothing else is wrong that might impede lowering the gear.

There's also a bunch of handling assessments with the gear down, since if the aircraft, for whatever reason, handles like a pig gear down, you want to know about it as soon as you can, since gear down flight is required on every flight; gear up is optional.

Note carefully - the above comments DO NOT apply to seaplanes.

They do, however, apply to fixed-gear landplanes. :eek:

It would apply to an amphibious aircraft being tested from a land runway, though. Not sure if anyone TODAY does amphib first flights from water.

Hmmm - interesting point.

But I'd think that water-handling characteristics would be a very early priority, because rectification of hull design is a bit more complex than shimming the undercarriage. :uhoh: