C-172RG Cutlass Slow(er) Flight with Gear Down

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Good afternoon all,

While I'm working on the Bearhawk, I'm flying either a C-140 or a C-172RG Cutlass. While out leaf peeping with a friend late last week in the Cutlass, I slowed down so we could get a better view and some photos. So I slowed us down a bit, put the gear down, and trimmed it up for around 90. My friend asked why I put the gear down. Although it certainly makes it easier for me to slow down the plane with the gear out, it was a reasonable question, I thought.

The guy who taught me to fly the Cutlass said that in case of a stall/spin, that the plane would have a harder time recovering with the gear up, and that it should always be down in slow(er) flight. I just took his word for it, and that's the way I've been doing it. But now I'm wondering if I should call BS.

I know that the Cutlass gear horn makes a heck of a lot of racket when the gear is up and the manifold pressure comes down below a certain level. For that reason alone I'll put the gear down when I need or want to pull the throttle back a bit.

What do you experienced aviators have to say on the subject?

Best regards,
Chris

[marcusofcotton]

Well, the cg would shift forward slightly with gear down... may help in recovery.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

That makes sense. The CG does move quite a bit (in feeling) when the gear moves. Requires quite the trim adjustment.


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[Bcone1381]

If the CG is within the envelope, it will recover from a stall just fine. I would guess its more likely taught by someone who is handicapped by unreasonable fear and projects that onto others.

[swpilot3]

For what it's worth, I was taught that in a multi-engine aircraft the gear would decrease Vmc. The gear stabilizes the airplane via the keel effect.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

All good information, thanks :-) I suspect FUD drove that, and can't believe that Cessna, of all "people", would let a 172 variant out of the locker that would become easily uncontrollable with something as simple as the gear being up. Sounds like I need to get in the plane with my favorite instructor and go test this out at altitude.

[jaredyates]

If you did a poor job on a spin recovery and the speed started to build, more drag would help mitigate that. From an operational standpoint, any situation that requires you to drown out the sound of the gear horn is bad- you'll be training your brain to drown it out every time, to a degree. Those are two factors that I can think of, not to say that they are factors that matter enough to lead you to put the gear down every time you fly slow.

[JimParker256]

I agree with Jared. Forcing yourself to ignore an audible warning is bad practice. I would put the gear down for that factor alone. I've known several pilots who landed gear-up, and to a man (and one woman) they all say "I didn't hear the gear warning horn at all..." I think they had just trained themselves to ignore it.

[jaredyates]

The case that I knew of first-hand was when a fellow instructor and student were on an evaluation flight. The instructor simulated a power loss at around 3000 feet agl over the top of an airport by bringing the throttle back to idle. Of course the horn started sounding immediately. The student knew that he didn't want to put the gear down until he was sure that he had the energy to make it to the airport, which was the start of ignoring the horn. As the approach progressed for 4 minutes or so, they continued to ignore the horn. Then, both forgot to do a GUMPS check, and the emergency engine-out checklist didn't include mention of the gear, or a before landing checklist. They had run out of defenses. It was especially embarrassing for the evaluating instructor as you can imagine, but all of us could see ourselves heading down the same path under the right circumstances. It's like the old joke about the Navy pilot who landed gear up. His superior asked him after the flight why he didn't follow the tower's instructions to go around, and he said "I couldn't hear them over that loud horn."

[JimParker256]

One of my best friends (an excellent pilot, by the way) landed gear up at the very end of his Commercial check-ride. They had been doing slow flight stuff, and in the Piper Arrow, the gear would "auto-extend" when you dropped below a certain MP and maybe airspeed (been a while). So it was "routine" to pull the circuit breaker to prevent the gear auto-extension, but absolutely nothing would disable the unbelievably loud "gear warning" horn... The examiner told him he had done really well, and that he would appreciate it if my friend would drop him at the other airport that was closer to his home, instead of flying back to home base. They were "right there" and had to immediately call tower for clearance, got clearance for a straight-in approach, and hustled through the checklist, with neither of them noticing the gear never went down. Of course, they just spent almost 45 minutes ignoring the horn, so it didn't even register... First indication was a "ticking" sound as the prop tips hit the pavement... Needless to say, my friend did NOT get his Commercial license that day, and when he did the re-check, that Designated Examiner was no longer a DE...

[Chris In Milwaukee]

Interesting point about ignoring the gear horn. I wasn't intentionally suggesting that I'd put the gear down to silence the gear horn because it can be noisy, but perhaps subliminally that's the end result. I've caught myself a few times trying to fly it like a welded-down 172 and reduce throttle during a decent, and went so far that the MP dropped past the alarm point. The gear horn has certainly kept me honest with the throttle. But (so far) I haven't heard it because I forgot to put the gear down.

The drag aspect seems to be the most reasonable explanation of the gear-down approach to stall/spin taming. I'll scour the POH and see if there's anything in it regarding that sort of operation.

[Chris In Milwaukee]

And thanks for all of your thoughts on this. It's a slow Bearhawk discussion day, so thought I'd stir the nest a bit.