Question about dropping damaged landing gear...

[Frostiken]

So I've come into a few situations where I try to drop my gear and they won't budge. Naturally you snag that handle and hopefully they'll drop. All is good, right?

 

Well, my question is... how realistic is this? Landing gears are almost completely gravity-driven specifically so they will still drop even in absence of hydro - and with luck, the resistance of the airstream will somewhat lock them in place.

 

Many aircraft don't have the luxury of an emergency 'drop landing gear' handle, so it's common (well, common in the event of a failure) for them to try to 'shake' the gear loose by putting on heavy Gs so that the weight of the assembly will pop it loose.

 

Now I don't know what kind of failures are causing landing gears to get stuck (besides hydro failure), but they're designed mostly to fail in the DOWN position so you can still land. The A-10 is designed to be able to land on its belly with minimal airframe damage, so maybe the gear system is different. Just... not what I expected.

[Depth]

If the gear doesn't come down when you open and close the gear lever make sure you leave it in the "down" position then pull the aux. gear lever down by the rudders. Wiggle the plane as much as you can above 200 IAS to force it loose. If that doesn't do it jettison the stores and land on the belly.

[Snoopy]

FYI all the aux bottle does is release the unlock hooks. The wind then pulls down the gear. We've had jets belly land and only damage the bottom of the vertical stabs and mavs. We had the jet repaired and fully FMC and flying in a week.

[sobek]

We've had jets belly land and only damage the bottom of the vertical stabs and mavs.

 

Why did he not jettison the mavs? Is it not standard procedure?

[Snoopy]

Training mavs, live they would have. It was decided that time that since they were inert to belly land with them so less damage would be done to te airframe. I use to have a picture I'll see if I can find them.

[kingneptune117]

is the g force method of dropping the gear actually modeled in this sim? what about the shaking method?

[hassata]

We had the jet repaired and fully FMC and flying in a week.

 

Says it all right there.

[Snoopy]

is the g force method of dropping the gear actually modeled in this sim? what about the shaking method?

 

I've used the emergency extension handle a couple times...

[Rainmaker]

Well, my question is... how realistic is this? Landing gears are almost completely gravity-driven specifically so they will still drop even in absence of hydro - and with luck, the resistance of the airstream will somewhat lock them in place.

 

 

To touch on this a little...you still need hydro to a certain extent. Hydraulic pressure is still used to release the locks. The biggest difference is where the pressure is derrived from. Some have aux pressure bottles, others will use something like the JFS manifolds(in the jets that have them) to release the locking mechanisms. But an issue within the landing gear hydraulic system can still render the aux system useless.

[Depth]

What does the A10 use? Right engine hydraulics system or pressure bottles?

[Snoopy]

What does the A10 use? Right engine hydraulics system or pressure bottles?

 

The right system (powered by the #2 engine) charges the emergency accumulator bottles. If you still have power to your RT system that technically will release the uplock hooks. if you don't have hyd power then of course it is strictly the emergency accumulators releasing the hooks.

[Depth]

Sounds similar to the emergency startup system in some lifeboats

 

Isn't there a risk of a rupture in the accumulator bottles when taking fire?

[Snoopy]

Sounds similar to the emergency startup system in some lifeboats

 

Isn't there a risk of a rupture in the accumulator bottles when taking fire?

 

Of course but if the bottles get shot up more than likely you're going to eject. The emergency accumulators are more for day to day type failures than combat issues.