I’m not sure a dedicated system would help. At least in the RG Cessnas, there are only two warning sounds, and that’s for the gear (don’t know about the Socatas) and stall, yet people still blank it out. I know this sounds a bit flippant, but fly the airplane, don’t expect the airplane to do the job for you.
NIL: You would be surprised how many retractables I inspect to find the gear waring system either completely INOP or improperly rigged …
If I am flying non standard into Schipol duting LVP and have delayed the gear down to help Ryanair behind me I say to myself at the start if the approach that I am flying non standard and my gear is not down. I give myself a point (say 2 DME) when I will drop it. Essentially if flying out of my normal pattern I need to know that I do not have my normal “protections” of doing things in a certain order. I find explicitly saying it to myself helps.
The TB has two sounds too: gear up, and stall warner. In that Megeve video you hear both of them near the end. They are seemingly arranged so one of them is interrupted at some frequency, otherwise they would merge. Not sure how it is done (not looked it up). So if one was to convert the gear one into a voice annunciation, one would need to do something about the stall warner one so it doesn’t suppress the voice. Mind you, you should not get the stall warner until you are just above the runway – otherwise you have a very big problem 
There is no substitute for situational awareness and it is a fact of life that aircraft bite fools, Colbalt’s assertion that the warning horn was the reason that the Helios crew failed to pick up the pressurisation problem is over simplification by a factor ten.
The problem started when the FO failed to set up the pressurisation panel as per SOP and this omission was not picked up in the pre flight checklist…. The crew then failed to do the after take off checklist properly as the pressurisation panel should have been part of checking the engine bleeds are on ( cause and effect ) ……. At 10,000 ft the horn went off but by this time the crews ears should have felt the large pressured change and the increased cabin noise.
I could go on but the crews actions show a very lack luster crew who should have picked up the problem long before the misunderstood warning went off…………….
It was lack of situational awareness that killed them because they should have picked up the problem a long time before the warning that they misunderstood went off. The last thing that could of saved them was the crew oxegen but from the position of the body’s in the flight deck I would guess that at the last moment the Captain realised that they had not switched that on during the preflight !So back to preventing gear up landings, you have to do the checklist …… Feel the gear go down and its effect on the aircraft…… Observe the power settings and airspeed on approach and should this be high ask why ? Then at 300 ft check, Reds, blues & greens.
No amount of warning systems will prevent the unaware from not putting the gear down but a multi layer approach to aircraft configuration can.
The crew of that Helios aircraft clearly made some stunning mistakes – the accident report went into some detail on the training records of the crew, which shed some light into the general competence level of the captain…
The warning systems exist to prevent harm when stuff goes wrong. All I am saying is that the warning systems are bad by today’s standards, and could be MUCH better for a few bucks. This also applies to warning systems that warn of technical malfunctions. What do you prefer – “UIUIUIUIUIUIUIUIUI” or “Engine Fire, Left Engine”? “BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP” or “Carbon Monoxide High”?
But if your ex-wife says “gear down” you’ll become stubborn and not do it!!!!
I teach “configuration assurance”. What’s the next thing you are planning to do with the plane? Have you assured it is in the correct configuration? If you don’t know what the correct configuration should be, well, you really should not be flying the plane! So you know what the configuration should be, make it that, and then as a purposeful action, assure that the configuration is correct. If, for you, that action of configuration assurance is a checklist, or a “Gumps”, great! As long as you assure configuration.
Warnings are nice, but they can fail, and are not suitable for all aircraft types. And sneaky pilots can defeat the warning system – I thought about this while carrying power into landings when I flew the Navajo. I’d remembered the gear, but if I had not, nothing would have warned me! I changed my habits, throttles to idle at some point late final, then back up if I chose to carry power.
Some aircraft have no warning systems. Yes, there are RG aircraft with no flaps. One of mine is the later flap equipped version of the original plain wing RG aircraft. I landed it twice today with the wheels down, and six times with the wheels up. No warnings, just configuration assurance, and all went well….
The factory installed system in the Comanche is an horn that comes on if manifold is below 15". However, in my aircraft I have installed another system that is electrically connected to the gear squat switch. If the gear is not down and the aircraft is slower than 100kias and below 200’ (there is a sensor on the belly) the system will provide a warning via the headset saying “check landing gear”. Unfortunately this unit was proved to be unreliable. Many buyers reported early failures, mine lasted for about 8 years. To the best of my knowledge the manufacturer went out of business.
I like the “configuration assurance”. Control of an aircraft shall happen via willfull acts and not as reaction to warnings.
At the same time, I’d like to have a warning system as a backup for that one-in-a-lifetime moment when my concentration drops.
BTW, do you know the SmartASS? It is a talking ASI that helps to maintain a selected speed, and also can provide the gear up alert through a nice lady’s voice.
It even implements the Peter’s idea of the voice of your ex. If you have a record, just upload the audio files to the device and the cockpit will all of a sudden sound so familiar.
SmartASS is probably the next thing to be installed into my flying beauty.
