Omakase

Amazon Search

Poor Ol’ Bo

Most pilots of complex piston singles have had the “GUMP” landing checklist drilled into them by their instructor: “G” – gas selector to fullest tank, “U” – undercarriage down, – “M” – mixture rich (or best power), and “P” – prop full increase. Your plane may or may not have other checklist items to perform, such as cowl flaps closed for example. But execute the GUMP check properly, and things should go relatively well.

But it’s equally important when executing touch and goes to ensure that when one attempts to raise the flaps from approach to take-off configuration, one does not inadvertently raise the landing gear instead.

That’s going to be costly.

Share

33 comments to Poor Ol’ Bo

  • Sarge

    I wasn’t aware that Obama had a pilot’s license.

    “th’ car’s back in th’ ditch….”

  • Idaho Joe

    That’ll ruin your whole day.

    I was number two on final at the Reno/Stead airport (where they hold the air races) about 30 years ago, when I saw a Cessna 210 land gear up. Just as he started to flare we could see he had three up and locked, since it’s so evident in a 210. My instructor tried to grab the mike and give him a warning on the UNICOM frequency, but it was too late. As he slid slowly towards the right side of the runway we added power and landed past him (8000 foot runway.) If I remember correctly he had about 20 hours on a rebuilt engine and new prop.

  • Flugelman

    Earlier Bonanzas had these switches on the lower part of the panel for LG and flaps that resembled each other and were really close together. This type of accident was somewhat common because of that. Beechcraft redesigned the layout, IIRC sometime in the 70s or early 80s, to alleviate some of the confusion. I’m left to wonder which panel this poor guy had.

    • ZipprSuitdSungod

      To make matters worse, prior to I think 1983, the Bonanza’s gear and flap switches were arranged opposite any other aircraft’s switches with the flap switch being to the left of the gear switch, where the other aircraft, and later model Bonanzas had gear switches on the left and flaps on the right. Made the early Bonanzas very prone to accidents just like that shown in the vid.

  • yaJames

    Yet another reason to throttle up before flaps up.

  • E Hines

    Doesn’t that model have WOW sensors?

    It did remind me of an incident at Bitburg AB while I was up the road at Pruem some years ago. An F-15 driver was shooting touch-and-goes, and he must have zoned because he dumped his center-line instead of his gear on one pass. He recovered in time to drop his gear, too, so the aircraft wasn’t damaged. His squadron commander had him in the simulator for the next 30 days practicing the relationship between the gear knob and the center-line release handle.

    Eric Hines

  • Comjam

    D’oh! Even now, while I’m back to one engine and welded gear, I try very hard to avoid touching anything until I’m clear the runway and can actually see I’m touching the flap handle. Hey, you never know, I could win the BIG lottery and buy something fast and expensive! ;)

  • Airmail

    Had a very good flight this weekend ina fixed gear airplane….no problems ((-:

  • Quartermaster

    I’m not sure he was trying a touch and go. I didn’t hear the engine spool up after he touched down. I did hear an engine after he wrecked, but that probably wasn’t him.

    I’d say the AC is totaled. The loss of several feet of starboard wing, damage to the tail surfaces, and engine damage all adds up to a very large repair bill.

  • chunk

    Money > Brains

  • BN

    This looked like a late/recent Bonanza, so it’d have the little wheel shaped wheel lever that is much different than a flap lever. But like others have stated, didn’t hear the engine spool up prior the gear up. Perhaps he didn’t have three down and locked?

  • G-man

    On my first on wing flight in T-28s flew with a USMC captain. Flew to an outlying field and the first pass he told me to fly gear up. I thought “gear up, what for, how low, how close?”. he was gonna check the wheels watch – being another lowly ensign not on the flight schedule. Sure enough at 20 ft he says “my aircraft” and hits 56 of MAP and off we go roaring around to an abbreviated pattern. Land, taxi, park, he gets out, and proceeds to rip the guy a new one. Climbs back in and we complete the flight. He says he gave the poor guy a DOWN on wheel’s watch – I didn’t know such a thing even existed (and to this day I don’t know). And on that flight I first heard “there are two kinds of pilots – those that have, and those that will make a gear up pass”.

    That captain was killed in a Cobra during the Grenada debacle.

  • LOL
    -Are you pilots?
    -Something like that. There’re too many switches in the cockpit.

  • T.G. McCoy

    Agree its a later model. Wonder if he did have 3 green?
    Bellied in a Cessna 310 -on purpose btw had multiple failures
    didn’t need to have any thing else cascade further..
    Shorter,louder more expensive…

  • turbodan

    Back in aero school, we figured out the take-off distance hit for having the flaps/slats down from start to rotate. Since you don’t need them until you fly there’s some drag benefit to accelerating up to that speed while still slick.

    Aircraft certification disallows on-the-roll configuration changes. There may be some wisdom to it.

  • Umm, I thought the gear lever has had a wheel-shaped handle on it, and the flap lever a flap-shaped handle on it, for years and years now. Owhell, nobody’s brain works all the time, every time. One would think though, that the prospect of Horrible Screaming Death while committing such an un-natural act as aviation would concentrate one’s mind.

  • chip ridley

    The only thing left to add to this thread is that I’ve been taught ever since I started flying retractable gear, high performance GA airplanes that you just don’t do touch and goes. That seemed odd to me as a former Naval Aviator who did thousands of touch and goes over the years. The main reason I was told is the requirement to get the flaps from ‘land’ up to at least ‘approach’ to compensate for the much lower power available in GA airplanes and the potential for one to inadvertently raise the gear by accident. That always made sense to me. I completely agree that all retractable gear airplanes should have operative weight on wheels switches (my B-36 has one on each main mount), but since I’m the guy who has to pay if that cheap thing fails, I agree with the policy of just doing a full stop and taxi back. Most good gouge gets learned the hard way by somebody and I’m glad to see this video as a reminder.

  • I don’t do touch and goes in my Cardinal RG, but I do admit to raising the flaps on landing roll out. The Cessna gear handle looks like a wheel, and the flap handle, located about a foot to the right, looks like a flap.

    I always touch the flap handle and say ‘flap’ before I raise the flaps.

    Besides wanting to dump lift for cross wind and braking purposes, the Cardinal’s nose gear will not engage until you get a fairly noticeable nose down pitch.

    If you try to do an F-15 style aero-brake rollout there is a good chance you’ll sail right by the turn off because the nosegear steering isn’t engaged.

eXTReMe Tracker

View My Stats