News Cargo plane lands without nose gear

[Ravenous]

Interesting one for plane lovers everywhere:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35667406

The crew certainly know how to look after their plane - note how slow it appears to be going before they set the nose down.

I wonder how much headwind they had?

 

[ADSWNJ]

That's a beautiful landing for sure. The local METARs at the time showed he had a 10kt headwind with no gusts, bearing 070, for a 063 landing (so the wind was perfect). It was actually a training flight, and not only did they did this landing, they also executed a sweet touch & go first to try to bump down the wheel. I think the PF passed this test, don't you?

Sources: Avherald for the incident details, Flightaware for the flightpath (many loops!!) and landing time, FlightAware for the landing plate for 6R, and Flightaware for the METAR at the landing time (26-Feb/18:54 local)

 

[Lisias]

The procedures for landing without the front gear is the same for all (tricycle) aircrafts.

You touch down with the main gears at the lowest speed that is safe, and then you use the elevator as air brake while keeping the nose up the most you can (see below). The lower the speed you manage to touch the nose down, less the time it will suffer the friction.

The "magic" is to lower the nose just before the elevators loose lift, so you can gently touch down. If fails to do so, the nose will hammer the ground.

This video is demonstrates it beautifully. Observe how the pilot avoids damage to the tail and propellers.

 

[Ravenous]

Thanks for the links and the info. Yes I think he certainly earned some sort of prize, whatever prizes they get awarded out there!

 

[Andy44]

Okay, so how come it seems like it's always the nose gear that fails? Are nose gear assemblies not built to the same specs as main gear? It seems like every few months you see a plane land with the nose wheel up, but not the main (which is a good thing).

 

[kuddel]

Okay, so how come it seems like it's always the nose gear that fails? Are nose gear assemblies not built to the same specs as main gear? It seems like every few months you see a plane land with the nose wheel up, but not the main (which is a good thing).

Very interesting question!
Not that I have any data to found this, but this is what I could imagine as a cause:

The main gears are (more or less) close to the center of mass, which means that during deployment their "anchor point" will not move much during the deployment.
The nose gear -in contrast- is very far from the center of mass, so its "anchor point" will be able to move much (upwards) during the deployment. This could make some latches not get enough force to engage.

A more "stable" attachment point might make the difference.

...but I am just throwing my thoughts here. No *real* knowledge about gear-deployment mechanics...

What is it called? "2 cents"..? from me
/Kuddel

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Back before I transitioned to 100% helicoptors I was assigned to a squadron that had fixed & rotory wing craft.

We had a P-3 whose nose gear had barber-poled (thats what the indicator looks like when the gear is up). Mostly same scenario; mains down, nose gear up. Nose gear doors were sort of half open, or at least that's what it looked like during a flyby.

Pilot climbed up to get some altitude, went into a small dive angle to pull up and put about 4.5 G's on it. The gear popped right down to locked position.

That's the only time I'd actually seen this done, but I've heard about it in other squadrons and other craft (form other countries even). It's not common, but seems to be common knowledge.

Can commercial craft not do this?

 

[Cras]

You are not pulling a 4.5G climb/dive in a commercial airliner. Not happening.

 

[TachyonDriver]

More like up to 3Gs and that's it...

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Will it make the front fall off?

 

[Lisias]

You are not pulling a 4.5G climb/dive in a commercial airliner. Not happening.

You can try, however. ONCE.

 

[jedidia]

Will it make the front fall off?

I guess that depends on how bad it's stuck...

Was that freight plane loaded? If it's loaded, I would assume that there's no way they could pull such a maneuver in the first place.

 

[APDAF]

You have to remember most forward gear on aircraft doesn't have as much mass as the main gear and it also has a differant lowering mechanism.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

That seems to be a 727. Having had an opportunity to get up close and personal with an ex-FedEx 727 freighter, I'm going to say that pulling any sort of Gs able to extend the gear would NOT be possible. You'd snap the wings off before you deployed the gear.

 

[Andy44]

That seems to be a 727. Having had an opportunity to get up close and personal with an ex-FedEx 727 freighter, I'm going to say that pulling any sort of Gs able to extend the gear would NOT be possible. You'd snap the wings off before you deployed the gear.

You can tell that just from looking at one up close? Really?

 

[MaverickSawyer]

The gear uplocks and the hydraulics are VERY stout. Boeing built them well back then.

 

[Andy44]

The gear uplocks and the hydraulics are VERY stout. Boeing built them well back then.

True, 727's were built to land on dirt strips. They are tough.

I thought you meant you could tell it couldn't take 4 G's just by looking at it. I'm pretty sure any airplane certified to carry passengers can handle 4 G's, even if you're not technically supposed to do it (or not allowed by the software on modern jets).

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Never said that it couldn't handle 4 Gs. I said that, at the accelerations needed to force the gear down, you'd snap off the wings. We're talking 12+Gs.

 

[TachyonDriver]

What puzzled me was why the 727 video was slowed down.. I mean even at real speed you'd have seen what was happening..

 

[ADSWNJ]

What puzzled me was why the 727 video was slowed down.. I mean even at real speed you'd have seen what was happening..

Try this one instead.