Is a gear-up landing inevitable?

A couple of recipes against a gear-up landing:

• don’t let yourself distract by, for example a sick pax, an urgent need, challenging wx, ATC, non-standard stuff
• brief your co, or wife/GF, or your dog seating on your right (or behind), to check for gear down
• listen and understand any alert before pulling any CB
• don’t overestimate yourself
• don’t fly a retractable
• don’t fly

Come on there ARE pilots that have never done a gear-up landing.

There’s those that have, and those that will.

Why this saying is so good is because it means “Don’t let your guard down!”

The first step towards a gear up landing is saying

“I won’t have a gear up landing because…!”

Some items of my strategy:

1) Never accept a gear warning. Rectify it immediately. Beep beep → gear down!
Normalizing it by flying around for 10 minutes with a beeping gear warning is counterproductive.

2) Use multiple triggers to hook gear down with other actions
Flaps_x → Gear down
Xyz → Gear down
Fuel pump → Gear down
Cleared to land → Gear down
Mixture rich → Gear down

3) use a final checklist always

There’s those that have, and those that will.

And there are those who haven’t… and they are the majority.

On the other side there are those who did it several times like one Croatia Airlines captain who had 4 gear up landings in SEP and MEP without any action against him by CAA.

In my other hobby, sports shooting, there is a similar adage to “everyone will have a gear-up landing at some point” which goes:

“There are two groups of gunowners: Those that have had a negligent firearms discharge and those that will have a negligent firearms discharge”

I think the similarity is striking, because both are events that shouldn’t be happening if you act in a concentrated and safe manner and yet they do because of distractions or well negligience of some sort. I have serviced guns a lot more times than I landed retractables, the latter of which was only a handful of times and always under supervision. Yet I find not shooting yourself with a loaded gun while cleaning it actually very easy to do. The vast majority of gunowners never experience a negigent discharge, I would wager: You simply have to always observe the basic rules of gun safety and you will be fine, i.e. 1) always point the gun in a safe direction 2) always check that the chamber is empty before holstering a gun or putting it back into its container 3) make sure that the striker is fired / the gun is uncocked when you put it away

Similar rules exist for flying and have probably all been posted on this thread. All that leaves then is the need for a constant discipline in observing these rules and being vigilant for any possible distraction or failure. Better check twice than land gear up or shoot yourself in the foot.

Great analogy @MedEwok
I always liked the similarity of flying and guns and the „you have to know you can/will f—k up because you actually simply can’t f—k up, or else severe consequences!“

During mandatory military service after „guard duty“ shifts and handing back the live ammo everybody points the barrel into a sandbox and fires. It’s not supposed to happen, and there are numerous safeguards, but once in a while it makes boom.

A good analogy.

One of my friends had one in his car which went through the odometer and windscreen. He was lucky because the normal result is Glock leg. He admits it was due to carelessness, which is easy to slip into.

Personally I make the flaps conditional on gear position: gear up before retracting flap, and down before extending flap. Originally posted here at least once by RobertL18C. With practice it should become second nature, and more likely to realise something is wrong when it’s not done. The actual method is less important than its consistent application.

So, did the props touch?

80+ year old pilot in that Aerostar. I’ve seen the pictures and it’s an absolute miracle that thing managed to go around with those bent props – they looked like Dracaena plants! He’s lucky to alive.

Stick to your procedures – always !! In a big traffic circuit landing gear down abeam in down wind. In a shorter traffic circuit better when turning into downwind, flaps are NOT essential at all at this stage. Some aircraft have pneumatic LG and flaps , all or nothing. So you set flaps as required – very late in short final – or no at all. In a direct approach you drop LG at a very lond distance from the airfield , some miles don´t hurt. Point is, you set LG in a situation without any distraction or stress, never wait – for what at all ?? Is it a shame to drop LG veeery early ? All the rest about flaps, mixer , whatever is not very relevant for a landing, you should be capable of landing with a dead engine as well when you keep circuit altitude in base or final stage till you are sure to reach the runway with a dead engine as well – without flaps in doubt – "as required " . This “gliding approach” with idle engine was taught in PPL as standard here for every landing and was simple enough to do even for beginners – in the typical Cessnas at least. With the heavy Yak and huge wooden prop idle engine landing would be a bit dramatic, very steep decend and challenging with an aerobatic roundout most likely. Anyway, drop the LG each time very early in a relaxed situation like mid downwind or a few miles out in direct approach. The rest of settings can be done as required for making it to the runway by watching speeds mostly. Vic