one landing gear doesn't extend

[Charley]

Several times now I've had one of the landing gear not extend for landing. The plane flies differently too  ,as if only one gear is down.

[GTFreeFlyer]

Interesting. I haven’t had this one yet.  I’ve had it where the right gear won’t go up, but it’s usually after a little bouncy takeoff and an error on my behalf.  For my own curiosity, can you post the track file?  We have no idea if you had a bad takeoff, got shot up by bandits, etc. 

Really need to provide more info when throwing up a post like this, otherwise I don’t think anyone would be able to help. 

[Charley]

Sorry I didn't save the track, next time I will include it  so I'm not ashamed of myself throwing up a post like this. But for the information needed  , this was from an air-spawn mission I made to practice carrier landings . No other aircraft involved , no take off damage.

[tityus]

Hello @Charley,

Did you check the Hyd pressure?  I'm not sure if this could be the reason, but next time you have the issue, retract the gear and flaps, make sure pressure is within limits and then lower gear ...  And then flaps.
 

 

[Charley]

11 hours ago, tityus said:

Hello @Charley,

Did you check the Hyd pressure?  I'm not sure if this could be the reason, but next time you have the issue, retract the gear and flaps, make sure pressure is within limits and then lower gear ...  And then flaps.
 

 

Thanks for this tip, I didn't even think to look at the gauge. When or if it happens again I will check that . I'll also remember to save the track.

[Charley]

I know this sounds pretty strange, but I had another instance of one gear not coming down. The plane didn't fly normally again, with one wing wanting to dip. I verified only one gear down on the F2 view. I raised the gear & lowered them again, but one gear still didn't come down. I was all set to send this track . When I watched the track though, it showed both gear extended. I wish I had taken another screen shot at the time so it doesn't look like I'm nuts. I did get a chance to check the hydraulic pressure this time though & it was normal.

Edited 9 hours ago by Charley

[seabat]

My experience was I did a crash and burn on a practice trap.  Looked at the track replay and saw for some reason the starboard gear was not down and wondered what I did wrong during the approach.  Then I remembered that my landing did not have a wing down skid when I was smacking into the island    Went and hit fly again and this time I missed the wires and plowed into the static planes on the bow with no dragging wing.   Looked at the track and one gear was not down.  Another try same end result but during the down wind went F2 after gear down and all were down.  Reviewed the track and video showed one up.  Went to exit program, re- entered and could not reproduce.  Second and third time I also double checked the gear indicators were all showing down.
 

No reflection on anyone else’s procedures or flights.  Only saying I believe my gear was down and locked but track was not capturing the whole picture.

seabat

[GTFreeFlyer]

1 hour ago, Charley said:

I know this sounds pretty strange, but I had another instance of one gear not coming down. The plane didn't fly normally again, with one wing wanting to dip. I verified only one gear down on the F2 view. I raised the gear & lowered them again, but one gear still didn't come down. I was all set to send this track . When I watched the track though, it showed both gear extended. I wish I had taken another screen shot at the time so it doesn't look like I'm nuts. I did get a chance to check the hydraulic pressure this time though & it was normal.

Still is strange. Upload the track anyway.  I’ll ignore the visual display.  I’m curious to see the flight parameters because I have still not experienced this, and would like to see if there’s anything I can learn to avoid it, and of course share with you.  

[Charley]

Here's the track in question.

F4U - 04 - Carrier Landing one gear down.trk All the shakiness in the track didn't seem apparent to me during the actual flight. I did notice difficulty in turning the plane though.

Edited 7 hours ago by Charley

[GTFreeFlyer]

Alright, I think I got this one and can help you...

So you need to drop the gear, wait for them to down-lock, before dropping the flaps.  If you take another look, you can see you put in full 50 deg flaps and were somewhere around 120-140 knots (my short term memory already forgot the speed I just witnessed moments ago).  The flaps couldn't push their way down into the airflow and were stuck at maybe 20-30 degrees by the look of it.  The flaps were in their "blow back up" state, which means the hydraulic valve was still stuck open, trying to feed more hyd oil to the flap actuators.  All of your hydraulic pressure was consumed for this task and not enough oil flow and pressure was diverted to the landing gear.

It's apparent you are not flying with a checklist because you missed a few other things as well.  These were not related to the landing gear issue:  Fuel tank selector needs to be on reserve, and mixture full rich for landings.  The checklist also calls for gear first, then hook, then flaps after slowing to 100-110 knots.

Have a look at some official checklists and follow them exactly until you get the hang of things, and then continue to use checklists before you find out that complacency kills.  If you'd like, search for my Corsair checklists which I have uploaded in this forum, as well as the user files section.  Install them, and make sure you wear out the Shift+K keys on your keyboard.  I collected the info from game manuals, old 1940's training videos, and the actual POH, and compiled the info together.  I've been flying my Corsair per these lists and don't really ever have any issues with the Corsair, knock on wood!

Anyway, I think you'll be good from now on.  Track files for the win!  Send more any time

Cheers,

-GT-

[GTFreeFlyer]

However, I will add, that this might still be a bug because I see no reason why the right gear won't extend once the left gear and flaps are in their full down position after you were slow enough.  The pressure in the hyd lines should recover at this point and be able to pop the uplock on the right gear.  I'm not quite sure how the system is modeled or how it behaved IRL.  Something worth noting.

[Charley]

Thanks for the advice & you were right , I was not following the checklist. I will follow &  hopefully , no more problems with the gear. One other thing I have been wondering about & I'm not sure this is the right forum to ask , but it's this: On many of my carrier landings I notice what looks like pieces of my damaged aircraft fly up in the air. I'm thinking I must have touched down too fast or hard. When I look at the F2 view though, I don't see any damage except for sometimes missing the  tail hook (the plane continues to operate as if it still has a good tail hook though & the whole plane seems to be fine). Is this a work in progress  on the damage model? 

Edited 4 hours ago by Charley

[GTFreeFlyer]

3 minutes ago, Charley said:

Thanks for the advice & you were right , I was not following the checklist. I will follow &  hopefully , no more problems with the gear. One other thing I have been wondering about & I'm not sure this is the right forum to ask , but it's this: On many of my carrier landings I notice what looks like pieces of my damaged aircraft fly up in the air. I'm thinking I must have touched down too fast or hard. When I look at the F2 view though, I don't see any damage except for sometimes missing the  tail hook (the plane continues to operate as if it still has a good tail hook though). Is this a work in progress  on the damage model? 

I think we're all wondering about that.  It might be damage to the carrier deck.  I'm not 100% sure.  There's another thread on that in here, but no definitive answer that I'm aware of.  If your plane is still working, go for another lap!