David and others

Before Air Force birds had tail hooks we had a system where a cable
was raised to two/three feet in air. When bird ran into it the cable
caught on nose gear and the chain lengths attached to ends of cable
drug you to a stop.

This arresting gear was normally down and could be raised and lowered
by the tower when required.

This may have been the system in this case. It's been so long since I
retired not sure if they still use it?

The tail hook system can be used at either end of runway so you can
get two chances to use it in an emergency. Approach end and far end.

Any current jocks care to comment on to days systems besides the tail
hook system?

Oh yes, in winter the chains would freeze to ground and had to be
broken loose every day or they would jerk the tail hook off the bird.

On GCA. I made 999 to one ILS. Also made a full zero zero landing on
GCA. Great system.

Big John
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On Sun, 26 Feb 2006 11:08:20 +0000 (UTC), "David Cartwright"
wrote:

"Dan" wrote in message
roups.com...
Last night I took a quick trip to KYUM. On approach, the controller
mentioned that the "arresting gear was up" on the runway
Does anyone know what would have happened if I had landed on it? This
type of thing seems quite dangerous to GA aircraft.

One has to wonder why they didn't put it down for you (the fact that they
said it was up suggests it was retractable). As for what would have
happened - well, it would almost certainly have damaged your landing gear.

Incidentally, even if the arresting gear was down, you should always try not
to land before it (assuming there's plenty of runway the other side - which
there should be). I did part of my PPL training at RAF Coltishall, which has
arrester gear that sits in a little channel across the runway when it's
down. If you roll over the channel, you get a hell of a bump.

David C