Emergency landing of "my Challenger"

[genbrien]

Hi!

As some of you know, I'm a dispatcher for the Quebec's air ambulance. Yesterday it declaired an emergency because the nose wheel got stuck in the upper position. They hold for 1:30 to burn the extra fuel, and landed with only 500lbs left. Nobody was hurt

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

The 1st touch and go they made was with about 1500lbs of fuel. The problem with the Challenger is that its quite tail heavy, and it can be easy to pitch it too much, losing speed rapidly, and the engines are quite slow to spool up. So the challenge was to "bang" it without having the nose touching the runway, nor stall it by overcompansate. The 1st attempt fail, so they had no choice to land the 2nd time

 

They land at about 120kt(about 10-15kt slower than usual) the plane was so light + ground effect that it float longer than tought

The pilot hold the plane only with the reverse until 60kt, wich then started to drop. Luckily the nose gear lowered just in time!

Edited April 4, 2011 by genbrien

[ilikepie]

great job by that guy!!!

[X-man]

Did the nose wheel drop while on the runway? Just in time I guess... :thumbup:

[genbrien]

Did the nose wheel drop while on the runway? Just in time I guess... :thumbup:

 

The nose was starting to drop when the gear went down. 1sec later would have been too late! We were very lucky!

[MrYenko]

I had to watch it twice, I swore someone spliced the film... They go behind a hill at a very, shall we say, convenient time.

 

Glad everyone was safe. :thumbup:

[genbrien]

1st post updated

 

And it's 100% real ;)

Edited March 28, 2011 by genbrien

[Tez]

I've heard about a similar incident in Russia. Pilots made several touch downs to knock the nose wheel out. And they succeeded in it!

[Shaman]

Now that's a landing!

What was the reason of jam in the first place? Still under investigation?

[genbrien]

Now that's a landing!

What was the reason of jam in the first place? Still under investigation?

 

Dont know if the investigation is over, been off for a week:D

 

But we are like a big familly so I'll tell you what happen :smilewink:

 

Our Challenger(Cl-601) has a gravel kit. The nose wheel's skid only has about 1/4 of an inch on each side to pass the door(pretty tight lolll :music_whistling:). When the gear is in the UP position, it's stowed about 20-30 degree up from the horizon. What happened, and we dont know why(and that's the same thing that happened to our old C-FURG) is that the nose gear's chock lose all it's Nitrogen. So once the chock is empty, there is nothing that can maintain it extended and locked in its 20-30degree up. So when the pilot pull the lever in the down position, the gear was not where it was suposed to be, and the gravel kit's skid got stock sideways on the doors. So how does the gear got down ?

I didnt knew that, but the nose wheel mechanism push it down with 3000lbs of pression :weight_lift_2:

The skid was bent, but I dont know if the gear dropped because of that. What we think is that, at the end on the runway, the wind was pushing the nose gear up, but as soon as the nose dropped it became so weak that the gear went down.

The plane is still mechanical

[Shaman]

Dont know if the investigation is over, been off for a week:D

 

But we are like a big familly so I'll tell you what happen :smilewink:

 

Our Challenger(Cl-601) has a gravel kit. The nose wheel's skid only has about 1/4 of an inch on each side to pass the door(pretty tight lolll :music_whistling:). When the gear is in the UP position, it's stowed about 20-30 degree up from the horizon. What happened, and we dont know why(and that's the same thing that happened to our old C-FURG) is that the nose gear's chock lose all it's Nitrogen. So once the chock is empty, there is nothing that can maintain it extended and locked in its 20-30degree up. So when the pilot pull the lever in the down position, the gear was not where it was suposed to be, and the gravel kit's skid got stock sideways on the doors. So how does the gear got down ?

I didnt knew that, but the nose wheel mechanism push it down with 3000lbs of pression :weight_lift_2:

The skid was bent, but I dont know if the gear dropped because of that. What we think is that, at the end on the runway, the wind was pushing the nose gear up, but as soon as the nose dropped it became so weak that the gear went down.

The plane is still mechanical

 

Thanks for description, I appreciate it. I work in aircraft maintenance section. Anyway this event kinda makes me wonder why inside the cabin there is no emergency crank with mechanism that multiplies the forces of human arm to lower the gear down - just like it was on old WW2 bombers.

Edited April 1, 2011 by Shaman