Great Belly Landing
It was on the Dallas news stations last evening. Two men were in a twin-engine airplane, probably an instructor and student, but the news wasn't clear on that.
The landing gear went partway down, but didn't lock. The landing was caught live from a news helicopter. He came in low and slow, slightly nose-up attitude. I figured he would at least damage the propellers, but about six feet off the deck, the pilot cut his engines. Both stopped with the propeller blades parallel to the ground. Just before touchdown, the pilot opened the door, probably to keep it from being jammed shut on impact. The plane just glided gently onto the runway and slid to a stop. It appeared that there was very minimal damage.
When the guys got out, one of them went round to the front, grabbed the propellers one each and rotated them, I presume checking to see if he had grounded one and bent a crankshaft, but he didn't.
It helped that the runway was wet from rain, so there were no sparks.
Slide show available here:
http://www.nbc5i.com/index.html
I haven't found video yet.
The landing gear went partway down, but didn't lock. The landing was caught live from a news helicopter. He came in low and slow, slightly nose-up attitude. I figured he would at least damage the propellers, but about six feet off the deck, the pilot cut his engines. Both stopped with the propeller blades parallel to the ground. Just before touchdown, the pilot opened the door, probably to keep it from being jammed shut on impact. The plane just glided gently onto the runway and slid to a stop. It appeared that there was very minimal damage.
When the guys got out, one of them went round to the front, grabbed the propellers one each and rotated them, I presume checking to see if he had grounded one and bent a crankshaft, but he didn't.
It helped that the runway was wet from rain, so there were no sparks.
Slide show available here:
http://www.nbc5i.com/index.html
I haven't found video yet.
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That could have got ugly. Dead stick was a very smart move to land. I took some flight lessons and it is weird gliding to a landing. 0 -
The nose gear on Beech Travelairs is connected by a cable that pulls the step down as the gear comes down. A return spring pulls the step back up as the gear goes up and the cable goes slack. That is-it's supposed to. As these things age (abt 50yrs), that cable may shread some strands in its' guide and the spring hasn't sufficient tension to pull the slack out of the cable, leaving a loop in the nose gear well. The nose gear in trying to come down snags the loop, preventing
full extension.
Note, in the approach the step is fully down while the gear is only halfway down.
There is supposed to be a shear link installed at the front cable connection to let go in these cases.
The procedure on landing with partial extension is to pull the LG breaker and hand crank the gear down. This should break the link if the LG motor failed to. Before doing that the pilot should have tried to cycle the gear up and down a few times and maybe unsnag the cable. There's plenty of history to this problem.
If even this failed, I would have cranked the gear back up and landed in the grass. There would have been less damage.0 -
quote:Originally posted by v35
The nose gear on Beech Travelairs is connected by a cable that pulls the step down as the gear comes down. A return spring pulls the step back up as the gear goes up and the cable goes slack. That is-it's supposed to. As these things age (abt 50yrs), that cable may shread some strands in its' guide and the spring hasn't sufficient tension to pull the slack out of the cable, leaving a loop in the nose gear well. The nose gear in trying to come down snags the loop, preventing
full extension.
Note, in the approach the step is fully down while the gear is only halfway down.
There is supposed to be a shear link installed at the front cable connection to let go in these cases.
The procedure on landing with partial extension is to pull the LG breaker and hand crank the gear down. This should break the link if the LG motor failed to. Before doing that the pilot should have tried to cycle the gear up and down a few times and maybe unsnag the cable. There's plenty of history to this problem.
If even this failed, I would have cranked the gear back up and landed in the grass. There would have been less damage.
as much rain, snow, and sleet that they have had in dallas the last two weeks, landing in the grass would have been a death sentence.0 -
That grass looked pretty good in the photos.
Flat snow would have been much better.
There was a Bonanza (same plane but single engine) pilot in the northwest who had at least three unexplainable engine failures. He landed gear up in snow and slid no more than about 50 ft each time. After the first time he got so good at it, he cranked the prop horizontally before touchdown and had no damages except for antennas.
Had the pilot in question cranked his gear up, the nose wouldn't have dug in and the damage would have been light to insignificent.
The low blade on each prop may be history and crankshaft flanges need to be dial indicated for allowable runout.
Repairs/replacement of landing gear, doors, linkages, transmission, sheet metal and supporting structure could be $$$ignificant.
The FAA will have some questions for both the pilot and the Aircraft Inspector who inspected and licenced the machine.0
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