Roy Smith wrote:
In article bwc1c.12546$id3.4348@fed1read01,
"BTIZ" wrote:


BTW, I'm not sure about the older 180HP arrows, but most of the newer Arrows
have the auto extend mechanism disabled by either an AD or a Service
Bulletin.


Why would you want to disable it?

So you can practice maneuvers near minimum airspeed without the gear dropping,
so the gear doesn't drop when the gear extension pitot gets iced over (it's not
heated). Of course, here we are talking about disabling it with the cockpit
control, not by AD.

IIRC from my Piper-flying days, there was an AD to disable the auto-extension,
then the AD was rescinded. While the AD was in effect, it was disabled on some
airplanes and never re-enabled. So there's a mix of airplanes out there with and
without the auto gear extension enabled.