Nose landing gear stuck after takeoff

[Garfieldo]

Hi all,

 

on my last testflight I encountered a very strange problem: After a ramp start and takeoff at Groom Lake my nose landing gear got stuck in the extended position and would not move.

 

I followed the standard startup procedure very accurately and have no idea what might have caused this. I did not have the situational awareness to check the hydraulic pressures, so maybe there was a fault there. The preflight BIT did not produce any errors. The main landing gear retracted and extended repeatedly without a problem (the nose wheel position light stayed black the whole time while the other two worked accordingly). The whole time the audio warning for the LG kept beeping, even with all pos lights off.

 

I tried to release some 82s and it said "Release Aborted" (or something similar) in the MFCDs.

 

Neither the manual nor the forum produced any usable info on stuck gear in the DOWN postion, maybe you can help. I'm sorry that I cannot provide a track of the event.

 

Thank you for your time!

[sobek]

You probably did one or both of the following: Take off with too high speed or leave the nose wheel steering on above 60 knots.

[Garfieldo]

Thank you for your quick reply! With those two possibilities in mind, I wil try to reproduce this error later on.

[Zenra]

Disengaging NWS is an easy step to forget - I have certainly done it more than once :doh:

[asparagin]

Disengaging NWS is an easy step to forget - I have certainly done it more than once :doh:

 

If you smooth your trimmer right, then you won't forget it anymore, because then with NWS the steering will be a lot more sensitive then with rudders.

[Chris CDN]

I had it happen to me once as well. I believe the cause was some 'wobble' as the airplane was doing about 110 knots. Not enough for me to pull back on the stick but enough to buffet the aircraft. Any chance your takeoff could have been the result?

[Garfieldo]

I tried taking off with NWS on, and the nose wheel retracted without problem.

 

I had it happen to me once as well. I believe the cause was some 'wobble' as the airplane was doing about 110 knots. Not enough for me to pull back on the stick but enough to buffet the aircraft. Any chance your takeoff could have been the result?

 

This might very well be the case, since it was a nighttime takeoff. Maybe I was a little too occupied fiddling with NVGs and did not pay too much attention on the runway... :juggle:

[BlackSharkAce]

try braking the wheels before retracting them, you don't want turning wheels while you get your gear up !!

[RogueRunner]

try braking the wheels before retracting them, you don't want turning wheels while you get your gear up !!

 

I do not understand, no brakes on nosewheel so how is this relevant?!?

[BlackSharkAce]

ok if there are no brakes on nosewheel this is in deed not relevant.

[RogueRunner]

Yeah, very few aircraft had nosewheel brakes, think the B727 was one though.

[Belphe]

Well, I posted about this before but the trials I performed took place on the second airfield (Groom) in Nevada and because it is quite bumpy I blamed that for it. Have a look at my track and tell me why my nose wheel gets ripped off at 105 knots even though my NWS is off and all I'm doing is GENTLY pulling the stick...?

 

C**p rockets test BTW... ;P Sorry for those two Mi-8s taking off - my Dad used to fly them for 27 years and I'm a bit sentimental about them as well. Just FF till I try to take off...

 

Thanks!

 

Test.trk

[RogueRunner]

This never happened to me yet. Very strange. It looks like you yank the stick into your stomach but you state you do this gently. Very weird!

 

Strange watching someone else track IR usage though :D You look around alor and do it rather quick :) I would suppose mine would look strange to for someone looking over my shoulder since my Cougar MFD's are a little set on the side and Ihave to look at them if I want to puch a button which would translate to head movement in the game ofcourse.

Edited October 26, 2010 by RogueRunner

[mvsgas]

try braking the wheels before retracting them, you don't want turning wheels while you get your gear up !!

 

No need to do this, the aircraft does this automatically (on the main wheel of course) when LG handle is place up (in RL and in the Sim)

 

The nose wheel not retracting tells me that it got damaged ( call me capt obvious :D)

But how heavy was the aircraft on take off ( Fuel, weapons) This would help us narrow it down. I know the one time My nose landing gear collapse on take off, was when I was trying to fly with weight max load out to see how the aircraft handle

 

Also, is the groom lake airfield finished? It could be that the gear got damaged if you pass a part of the airfield that was not complete. There are several post regarding the aircraft sinking on different parts of airfields around the black sea map. Also I notice that AI does not like to take off from one of the runways of Nellis, so the gear could have been damaged that way.

[recoil17]

I've had front landing gear problems twice on Nellis.

 

I was landing once, touched down nice and smooth, everything was going good and BAM! I heard a bang and the nose popped up, when it dropped back down the nose of the plane hit the runway. The whole front landing gear was missing.

 

The second time, I was taking off and heard the same bang, the nose popped up, and it stayed up until I took off. I checked in F2, the front gear was missing. The gear door was shut. Raising my gear and lowering my gear didn't make a difference.

 

I turn my nose steering off usually around 51 KIAS. I didn't land rough, I set my nose wheel down very easy and it didn't happen until a few seconds after touchdown.

[jocko417]

I've had problems at Nellis too. After smooth touchdowns rolling out down the runway and for no reason -BANG- a main gear collapses. :-/

[Belphe]

I've had front landing gear problems twice on Nellis.

 

I was landing once, touched down nice and smooth, everything was going good and BAM! I heard a bang and the nose popped up, when it dropped back down the nose of the plane hit the runway. The whole front landing gear was missing.

 

The second time, I was taking off and heard the same bang, the nose popped up, and it stayed up until I took off. I checked in F2, the front gear was missing. The gear door was shut. Raising my gear and lowering my gear didn't make a difference.

 

I turn my nose steering off usually around 51 KIAS. I didn't land rough, I set my nose wheel down very easy and it didn't happen until a few seconds after touchdown.

 

I had similar problems a couple of times. I even had my main gear (one side at a time) ripped off the same way as nose wheel on my track. It is VERY strange because the total weight on the track video was only ~86% (!)

 

Regarding the stick being yanked - the pull was gentle but "deep" :) I pulled it ~3/4 of the way but started pulling just after reaching 85 kts and were doing it really gently. This happens quite often to me - once every 4 take offs with various ordnance and weight but I never froget about switching NWS nor I overload the aircraft. I also try to keep my stick movement as smooth as I can and make sure I start rotating before reaching 100 kts (even though such speeds should NOT damage the nose wheel either). I will not mention that I keep my Anti Skid On...

 

This is really strange as not many others seem to have such problem so often. I don't think this happens to me due to wrong piloting... :/ Hmmm...

Edited October 26, 2010 by Belphe

[mvsgas]

Try not to pull on this stick until later, see if that has any effect. I normally rotate at 115 to 129 knots indicated on the HUD. See if this has any effect.

[recoil17]

I wasn't pulling on the stick either time my nose gear ripped off. I was just rollin' down the runway with no control inputs.

[danny875]

Yeah this happened to me today, I was taking off on the Smurch Hunt(think thats it?), I noticed a small bump where the accel zone met the threshold while I was doing about 80 Kts. This produced a slight bobbing up and down for a second or two, front gear would not retract after rotation.

I managed to fly the mission for an hour before geting fustrated at my weapon systems failing to deploy. Guess its a limitation when a gear strut is hanging in front of them?

Nice slow landing after releasing my stores to reduce weight, no colapse even with full braking.

[Belphe]

I think this may be a bit bugged... I am quite sure at the moment that my error was in trying to pitch up the nose wheel to early (even at speeds of 75 - 80 kts). The nose wheel would then SLIGHTLY bounce every now and then (really gently but still... bounce) and would break in the end. Now, I believe this shouldn't happen because the bouncing is soft and nowhere near the forces present at touch downs. The gear should not get ripped off IMO.

 

Yes - my mistake is "early pitching"/trying to rotate.

No - the nose wheel should sustain such small bouncing and remain intact.

 

What do you think?

[kylania]

Personally I'd wait till 130+ to even pull up a little. :) And even a "little" bounce is still 30,000lbs of bounce being pushed against the runway at 80kts+. That's a lot of friction and force!

[Belphe]

Personally I'd wait till 130+ to even pull up a little. :) And even a "little" bounce is still 30,000lbs of bounce being pushed against the runway at 80kts+. That's a lot of friction and force!

 

Yeah but the same 30,000lbs is bouncing even harder against the strip with speeds of ~120kts+ at touch down... and it doesn't break off...

[Zomba]

I get the same thing once in a while on takeoff. I switch off NWS at 50-60kts, always very gentle with controls on takeoff roll, rotate at 120-125kts, rotate is measured and deep. The nose wheel break is very rare, but tends to happen around the 90-110kt range, just before I start rotation. I normally have a pretty decent load on (Who doesn't on takeoff?), but there seems to be no correlation between field condition and nose wheel failure.

[sweinhart3]

Probably more likely an issue with how the surface your rolling on is being interpreted. My plane gets stuck on taxiways frequently and sometimes have problems with one of the mains getting stuck forcing me to use max power to move at all and constantly steering right or left to go straight. The sim might be interpretting the ground to be "off-road" or something.