https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belly_landing

The most common cause of gear-up landings is the pilot simply forgetting to extend the landing gear before touchdown. On any retractable gear aircraft, lowering the landing gear is part of the pilot’s landing checklist, which also includes items such as setting the flaps, propeller and mixture controls for landing. Pilots who ritually perform such checklists before landing are less likely to land gear-up. However, some pilots neglect these checklists and perform the tasks by memory, increasing the chances of forgetting to lower the landing gear. I mean fuck, there’s just hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment and scores or dozens of human lives at stake. You can’t live your life as a slave to the rules. All aircraft with retractable landing gear are required to have a way to indicate the status of the landing gear, which is normally a set of lights that change colors from red to amber to green depending on whether the gear are up, in transit, or down. However, a distracted pilot may forget to look at these lights. This has led to aircraft designers building extra safety systems in the aircraft to reduce the possibility of human error. In small aircraft this most commonly takes the form of a warning light and horn which operate when any of the landing gear is not locked down and any of the engine throttles are retarded below a cruise power setting, but apparently not as retarded as some pilots.

dv said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belly_landing

The most common cause of gear-up landings is the pilot simply forgetting to extend the landing gear before touchdown. On any retractable gear aircraft, lowering the landing gear is part of the pilot’s landing checklist, which also includes items such as setting the flaps, propeller and mixture controls for landing. Pilots who ritually perform such checklists before landing are less likely to land gear-up. However, some pilots neglect these checklists and perform the tasks by memory, increasing the chances of forgetting to lower the landing gear. I mean fuck, there’s just hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment and scores or dozens of human lives at stake. You can’t live your life as a slave to the rules. All aircraft with retractable landing gear are required to have a way to indicate the status of the landing gear, which is normally a set of lights that change colors from red to amber to green depending on whether the gear are up, in transit, or down. However, a distracted pilot may forget to look at these lights. This has led to aircraft designers building extra safety systems in the aircraft to reduce the possibility of human error. In small aircraft this most commonly takes the form of a warning light and horn which operate when any of the landing gear is not locked down and any of the engine throttles are retarded below a cruise power setting, but apparently not as retarded as some pilots.

Thanks, I’II remember that.

Thanks.
And …. ?

Spiny Norman said:

Thanks.
And …. ?

Wiki rejected his proposed edit?

Well, on Microsoft FS-X you get a warning if you put the flaps down and don’t extend your landing gear, so I suppose that helps.

rumpole said:

Well, on Microsoft FS-X you get a warning if you put the flaps down and don’t extend your landing gear, so I suppose that helps.

That’s one of the reasons why Helen Keller never got a pilots license.

There are two types of pilot in this world, those who have landed gear up, and those who are about to.

Interesting landing

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=www.postrate+support+group%20victoria#q=pardo%27s+push

How often does it happen, really ?

I like to watch “Air crash investigations”.

It seems to me that a full 50% of those crashes could be prevented for a cost of $100 or so per aircraft, by equipping the cockpit with 5 backward pointing cameras. One on the roof to see of the tail or upper fuselage is damaged. One on each side to check the sides of the fuselage, engines and wings for damage. One backwards into the cabin to see of there are any hijackers, smoke or any loss of cabin pressure. And one underneath to check the state of the landing gear.

IMHO every large aircraft needs to be equipped with those five cameras.

mollwollfumble said:

I like to watch “Air crash investigations”.

It seems to me that a full 50% of those crashes could be prevented for a cost of $100 or so per aircraft, by equipping the cockpit with 5 backward pointing cameras. One on the roof to see of the tail or upper fuselage is damaged. One on each side to check the sides of the fuselage, engines and wings for damage. One backwards into the cabin to see of there are any hijackers, smoke or any loss of cabin pressure. And one underneath to check the state of the landing gear.

IMHO every large aircraft needs to be equipped with those five cameras.

It’d be more like $100,000+ to get all the appropriate tickets & approvals for an airliner. Easily more.
Then the problem of finding space in the cockpit to put a decent screen to view the cameras.
The cabin camera is also good but you don’t need a camera to work out if the cabin pressure has gone, as you get a pretty clear indication of that by your ears trying to escape from your head.
FWIW this is all you can see of the wings on a 747, so being able to see more would be rather handy at times.

I’ve just been watching Air Crash Investigation, and a pilot was so obsessed with a gear malfunction warning light that he ran out of fuel and crashed into a wooded urban area in Portland Oregon. (1978)

Miraculously, most of the passengers and crew got out alive. This was a case of an experienced pilot who apparently thought he knew best and ignored the warnings of his crew that he was running out of fuel, and he substituted a less manageable problem (fuel starvation) for a more manageable one (gear failure).

It seemed to be a case of self hypnosis where the pilot focussed on a single issue to the exclusion of all else. These types of psychological deficiencies are far more dangerous than the provision of adequate warnings of landing gear raised on landing.

i always marvel at how the investigators can put a million+ piece jigsaw back together and work out what went wrong. bloody amazing.

I have only ever flown aircraft without retractable landing gear.

The checklists I used though, always mentioned the gear, and I would say out loud “gear – fixed”.

Spiny Norman said:

FWIW this is all you can see of the wings on a 747, so being able to see more would be rather handy at times.

Well, at least you can check that they have/have not fallen off.

Skeptic Pete said:

The checklists I used though, always mentioned the gear, and I would say out loud “gear – fixed”.

And, on the ones with retractable wheels that fail to come down, the pilot says out loud “gear – needs fixing”.

So who wants to buy it?

http://s80.photobucket.com/user/stumpy_seahorse/library/hadspen

The Lockheed U-2 is a very interesting (and often hazardous to the driver) aircraft which routinely lands without half its landing gear…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_U-2

… nicknamed “Dragon Lady”, is a single-engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day and night, very high-altitude (70,000 feet / 21,000 m), all-weather intelligence gathering. The U-2 has also been used for electronic sensor research, satellite calibration, and communications purposes.

… High aspect ratio wings give the U-2 some glider-like characteristics, with an engine out glide ratio of about 23:1, comparable to gliders of the time. To maintain their operational ceiling of 70,000 feet (21,000 m), the U-2A and U-2C models (no longer in service) had to fly very near their Never exceed speed (VNE). The margin between that speed and its stall speed at that altitude is only 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h) below its maximum speed. This narrow window was referred to by the pilots as the “coffin corner”, because breaching either limit would likely cause the wings or tail to fall off the delicate plane. For 90% of the time on a typical mission the U-2 was flying within only five knots above stall, which might cause a decrease in altitude likely to lead to detection, and additionally might overstress the lightly built airframe.

…The U-2 is very sensitive to crosswinds which, together with its tendency to float over the runway, makes the aircraft notoriously difficult to land. As it approaches the runway, the cushion of air provided by the high-lift wings in ground effect is so pronounced that the U-2 will not land unless the wing is fully stalled. A landing U-2 is accompanied on the ground by a chase car and an assisting U-2 pilot calling off the angles and declining aircraft height as the aircraft descends. Cars used have been Ford Mustang SSP, Chevrolet Camaro B4C, Pontiac GTO, Dodge Charger Police Package, Pontiac G8 GT, and Chevrolet Camaro SS.

Instead of the typical tricycle landing gear, the U-2 uses a bicycle configuration with a forward set of main wheels located just behind the cockpit, and a rear set of main wheels located behind the engine. The rear wheels are coupled to the rudder to provide steering during taxiing. To maintain balance while taxiing, two auxiliary wheels, called “pogos” are added for takeoff. These fit into sockets underneath each wing at about mid-span, and fall off during takeoff. To protect the wings during landing, each wingtip has a titanium skid. After the U-2 comes to a halt, the ground crew re-installs the pogos one wing at a time, then the aircraft taxis to parking.

Bill: ever had one such?