Rich Ahrens wrote in
. net:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Intersting site, but the screens inside the wheel well were on all
-200s of the period. They aren't for gravel protection, they are to
protect the hydraulics in the event of a tire burst. If they are
badly disturbed, there's a warning in the office to say so. Later
ones didn't, but on those, most of the hydraulics and the aileron
actuator were forward of the wheel well bulkhead.
the gravel deflector on the nosewheel is huge compred to the one we
had. Our's retracted inside the wheel well, unless i'm remember ing
it wrong. I have a pic of the airplanes somewhere.
It doesn't show the vortx killers under the nacelles. They looked
like long pitot tubes that stuck out a couple of feet in front of the
intakes and used bleed air in some mystical way to keep dust from
coming into the engines. They may have workedm but you could shave
with a fan blade after six months of operaton in fine dust and sand.

Alaska Airlines used to operate some combis fitted out with all that
gear. I've been a passenger on them in the past in some of their
smaller stations. Here's a photo of one showing the vortex killers as
well as the nosewheel deflector:

http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=459024


Yeah, that one also has the large nosewhel gravel deflector. I'm almost
positive our's didn't, but I could be mistaken. Been years since I've seen
them. Al the same, our gear extension speed was quite low, 210 knots, IIRC
as opposed to 250 or 270 normally. One of our guys, who was fond of putting
it out at a reltively high altitude for a steeper initial approach, took to
using th emergency extension onthe mains only until he was on final.
This one doesn't seem to have the elephant ears posted previously. the kits
must have been ala carte..

Bertie