BELLY UP LANDINGS!!

[Guest beana51]

In the recent issue of AOPA mag.,Bary Schiff,in his proficient pilot ,alludes to about three times a week,a U.S. pilot finds his airplane impossible to taxi because it is on its belly,instead of its wheels.. I wonder how many Sim pilots do this too,honestly.Ya know the feeling,IFR,on the slope,runway appears,the flair, THEN! well you know! On my DC-3 I have done it too often. Speaking of the venerable DC-3 ,she is now 70yrs old.The old girl, like some of us just get better with age.Great DC-3 article included in the AOPA magazine. "DOWN AND LOCKED"?, I thought it was! DUUAA! :-hmmm VIN

[MD83 1]

My first TRUE flight sim was "Spitfire 40", back in 1989 (:-eek):http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/133902.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/133903.jpgI learnt how to land in that simulation, but I occasionally forgot about the landing gear ... CRASH :-lolIn 1993 I got a simulation called "A320 Airbus". I forgot to lower the gear on 10% of landings :-lol. Forgetting to lower the gear is incredibly rare nowadays :). Gear-up landings certainly make a lot of noise, and it's difficult to exit the active runway after making one :-lol

[Guest wildfire563]

Off topic, but, remember Microprose Gunship and F-15 Strike Eagle from 1987! And then Red Baron after that was simply amazing.Of course, then the discussion quickly moves to Tron!On topic, I never have a problem landing wheels up. I fixed the problem by using fixed gear airplanes. Problems landing, well, that's a different story.Flying in the sim can let you get bad habits, doing maneuvers and landings you wouldn't normally try. :-)

[rhodges 6]

Hello Vin:The old real world cliche is that there are two kinds of pilots that fly retractable gear: "Those that have landed with the gear up, and those that are going to."I remember many years ago, a gentleman was being checked out in a Piper PA-24 (Comanche 250). There was also another pilot, and instructor in the back seat along for the ride. After sliding along the runway to a stop with the gear up, all four swore up and down that they had three green lights. Enter the A&P mech. who reset the circuit breaker (a common occurance when one lowers the gear with too hot an approach speed on this bird)!. All four departed with their tails between their legs. Happy flying:RTH1585368CFI

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

VinThere are many gear up landings real life and although most real world pilots say "no, not me, never". There is always the occasion when a gear up can occur.After a flying life of "no, not me never" I was making an approach in terrible weather and vis.Becoming visual at just above minima on a non precision approach the runway lights vanished in even lower vis and scud clouds.I elected to miss and told my co-pilot. Just as I was going for the power to miss the scud parted and again the runway was visual.I continued the approach.At maybe fifty feet I made a final check to land only to be horrified at seeing no gear down which had been down.On my words of "miss" while I was looking for the runway my co-pilot had decided to retract the gear but forgot to tell me about it and that nearly ended in a very expensive mistake.I had no time left to drop the gear so we had to miss, go around and do the whole thing again.I find it amazing that with technology aircraft still rely on buzzers and horns.Voice commands "gear, gear, gear" are unmistakeable and should be a must even for older aircraft because there will be a time when "no, not me, never" gives you a big lesson ;-(Peter

[Guest beana51]

Thanx Pete,great story. It points out all the variables which can cause things to or not to happen.Murphy's law is alive and well, thats for sure. Not to long ago,an experienced driver ,who shall remain nameless, (for if I were to revel her identity as my wife, that could be hazardous to my health ),on the ground,in her car,put the selector in drive,and proceeded to attempt to back out of her garage,but wound up in the livening room instead.:-boom IT DO HAPPEN! "HAPPY THANKS GIVEN" VIN

[rhodges 6]

Thanks for the great post Peter.We all have a confession time or two where most of the time thankfully we were granted a reprieve.Obviously, you were flying a bird a little out of my league (with a copilot), wonder if you would tell us what it was (yea, I know the management Gods are listening)?I agree that the voice command "should be a must"!Happy flying:RTH

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

What it was is irrelevant ;-) but the lesson isnt as it shows that it is in the most extreme situations where your eyes and thoughts are out of the plane straining to see what is ahead that a mistake occurs.We are all human some mistakes we get away with and take a deep breath at the thought of what was seconds away.Other mistakes like stall, spins, turning sharp base, peering for the runway in poor vis can have fatal results.In those situations technology should be there to protect us and it is a sad reflection of aircraft design that up until recently that technology wasnt used.Anyway we both kept that one secret up until now so Im not giving any more away ;-)Anyone know if any airlines have landed gear up with such a mistake?Peter

[Guest midibyte]

Would'nt a "belly up landing" be landing the plane upside down?Scott

[Guest beana51]

It would seem so? Check Franksalot's post, now thats a belly up.Better ya keep the shiny side up,and the dirty side down VIN

[Guest thedoggg]

PMDG B1900c DHL livery following the river viusual approach to KDCA, make a perfect turn to line up with the runway,about 10 ft flare wait for sound of wheels touching down, they don't, wait something's wrong, GRIND!oops. A lot of people didn't get their packages on time that day. How much does a Beech 1900c cost? Lucky it was only on the sim.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Uh---any reason you're reopening a thread this old? I'd say the conversation's about fizzled out already.-John

[Guest thedoggg]

Because I'm a chronic necroposter and the thread was more interesting than the myriad of "complaint about payware such and such" threads I see.Carlos, yet again

[FlyingsCool 3]

I'm not so sure I like the concept of necroposting, but, given the, shall we say, "conversations" of late, it was nice to read something a bit off topic what all the screaming is about.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Guest thedoggg]

And the thread lives. I actually don't necropost that much (although here I go again). If you look at the dates of the posts you will notice that my original responce to this thread was back in March. I was new to forums then and didn't even know what necroposting was. it was later pointed out that I was a necroposter on another forum and that I wasn't letting old threads rest in peace. When I saw this thread recently I couldn't help but look to see if anyone else had reported their experience on the subject and I found someone had posted after me telling me I had necroposted. So I had to comment on this and my necroposting in general. It is an interesting thread about actual flying stuff instead of the usual "complaint threads" that seem to dominate the forums. Wish there were more like these even if they need resusitating. Refreshing indeed.Carlos