I do the same with the Saratoga. I only retract once clear of the runway and over-run area. Also, in the Saratoga, if you lift the gear lever before reaching a certain speed, the gear won't retract and the gear lights will flash red and make an aural warning. You have to then return the gear lever to the down position, and pul it up again once you are fast enough. I can't remember the speed right now at which this happens (brain fart) but I think that it's 90kts. (I don't know if it does this with all Saratoga models/years)

Always reminds me of that ridiculous auto-gear extension on the Piper Arrows. Yuck! Me an my friend argued rather or not we were going to pin the gear up (lock the auto-extend out) for 180 engine out practice.Sorry, back on topic! My fault.

Most pilots do it before they land. (grin)

haha!!The gear is generally extended before glide slope interception when flying an ILS, or abeam the runway threshold on a visual circuit, getting the aircraft in the landing config during the turn to final (you don't generally fly a base leg, instead flying an oval pattern instead of a square).If flying a non-precision approach, you generally extend the gear as part of configuring for landing after establishing visual with the runway, with the procedure generally being flown in the approach configuration.Best regards,Robin.

With Ryanair it's glideslope starts to come down, gear down, flaps 15 !! It's well explained in the Boeing fcom.

Just a quick question to those real life pilots here in the forum:When do you extend the landing gear? Are there any rules when you do so or do you just choose the moment you like?

A more obscure example ! Klm fly with gear down and flaps 30 at 10,000 ft on approach to Innsbruck Austria.This is NOT a typical scenario.

What is used by the instructor I had on my time in the real simulator of 737-800 and that is the KLM procedure, is to set Flaps 15 and Gear Down upon glideslope alive (on the first dot of the scale from the top)

Spot on !! As recomended by Boeing.

Always reminds me of that ridiculous auto-gear extension on the Piper Arrows. Yuck! Me an my friend argued rather or not we were going to pin the gear up (lock the auto-extend out) for 180 engine out practice. Sorry, back on topic! My fault.

Ah, care to bring me up to speed again real quick? Been flying the Arrows for a while but heck I can't seem to remember much about that auto-extension. I could certainly use a hint.

As a pilot on slightly smaller aircraft, you would lower your landing gear on downwind along with your first notch of flaps, but this is talking about Cessnas and Pipers, lol.

As a pilot on slightly smaller aircraft...

Slightly smaller than what? O_O

Slightly smaller than what? O_O

Jamalje, that would be slightly smaller than a Boeing 737 mate! Well OK, a lot smaller, but I haven't flown Boeing's, only Cessna's...

I suppose It comes down to the individual airline SOP. Whenever I fly a retractable, I extend them, roughly, 1 nm before the Final Approach Fix. but that's in a small piston aircraft... I'm sure it's more "complicated" than that in an airliner