Another Perfect Gear-Up

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
Gear up landings are no big deal for a typical GA plane.
...

In a Navion, you wreck the prop and grind the ends off the inboard flap
hinges.
No damage to the skin - assuming a reasonable paved surface.
(The nose wheel hangs down a couple inches even when retracted.)

You break the step off. Mine has a weld in the middle of it from
some previous owner's escapade. You also loose your antennas.

There were pictures from the "belly landing contest" at one of
the fly-ins, get a few guys to lift up a wing, prop some straw
bales under it, drop the gear, and you can roll it away.

Oh, yea, forgot the step. Ain't it great getting old. I'm told that the
second thing to go is your memory. I forget what the first thing is.

But, all in all, if you want to do a gear up landing, a Navion is probably
one of the better airplanes to do it in. :-)

--
Geoff
the sea hawk at wow way d0t com
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I'm not convinced that he is going to need a new prop and engine teardown.
It sure looked like he stopped the prop before touchdown

I tried watching the clip again but couldn't view it. IIRC the prop was
spinning when he landed - I don't know if that's considered sudden
stoppage. It looked like all three blades got bent up pretty good. As
far as the engine, if the prop was just windmilling and the engine
wasn't making any power, maybe it wouldn't need a teardown. I'd assume
insurance would cover it minus any deductible.

That reminds me of why I like the Piper gear system better. If there's
any loss of system pressure the gear free-falls.

Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:

But, all in all, if you want to do a gear up landing, a Navion is probably
one of the better airplanes to do it in. :-)


A Seabee is one of the better ones. You don't even ding the prop. If
you set it down nice and the surface isn't too rough all you do is
scracth the paint.

wrote:
I'm not convinced that he is going to need a new prop and engine teardown.
It sure looked like he stopped the prop before touchdown

I tried watching the clip again but couldn't view it. IIRC the prop was
spinning when he landed - I don't know if that's considered sudden
stoppage.

As far as Lycoming and Continental are concerned anytime the prop
touches something other than air it requires a teardown. When
I had my engine failure, the prop just got scuffed in the dirt
when I ran off the edge of the runway. It was enough for the
insurance company to opt for the tear down (they wouldn't have
otherwise).

"Ron Natalie" wrote

When
I had my engine failure, the prop just got scuffed in the dirt
when I ran off the edge of the runway. It was enough for the
insurance company to opt for the tear down (they wouldn't have
otherwise).

Was the engine still rotating, or already dead stopped?
--
Jim in NC

"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
m...
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe wrote:

But, all in all, if you want to do a gear up landing, a Navion is
probably one of the better airplanes to do it in. :-)


A Seabee is one of the better ones. You don't even ding the prop. If
you set it down nice and the surface isn't too rough all you do is scracth
the paint.

Yea, an even better choice.

How is the Seabee for landing in the water with the gear down? Probably
better than the Navion, eh?

--
Geoff
the sea hawk at wow way d0t com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
Spell checking is left as an excercise for the reader.

Morgans wrote:

"Ron Natalie" wrote
When
I had my engine failure, the prop just got scuffed in the dirt
when I ran off the edge of the runway. It was enough for the
insurance company to opt for the tear down (they wouldn't have
otherwise).

Was the engine still rotating, or already dead stopped?

Windmilling.