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Global Airlines’ Unusual Airbus A380 Ferry Flight
The aircraft crossed the Atlantic Ocean with its landing gear down. (airlinegeeks.com) Más...
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Back in 1989, I was a passenger aboard Thai Airways on a flight from Kathmandu to Bangkok. We took off, began climbing and then leveled off - then again began climbing, and again leveled off. A voice on the loudspeaker told us the landing gear had failed to retract. They were going to circle while dumping fuel and then return to Kathmandu. After landing successfully, the guys with the sledge hammers came out to the plane. We stayed on board. Bang, bang, bang on the landing gear. The powers that be seemed satisfied because again we were told via loudspeaker that we were going to take off and determine if the landing gear would retract. If it did, we had enough fuel to fly to Bangkok. If it did NOT, we were going to fly to Calcutta. The whole time I was screaming inside my head, "Leave the effing landing gear alone!!" Of course my greatest fear was it would retrack and then get stuck. We DID make a successful landing in Calcutta thus leading to another hair raising story for another time, but I guess we flew from Kathmandu to Calcutta with the landing gear down.
It seems they just followed the manual:
https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/app/themes/mh_newsdesk/pdf/news-parking-and-storage-return-to-service-summary-letter.pdf, page 15
There is a third option besides lifting the plane with a jack but without details.
https://safetyfirst.airbus.com/app/themes/mh_newsdesk/pdf/news-parking-and-storage-return-to-service-summary-letter.pdf, page 15
There is a third option besides lifting the plane with a jack but without details.
Okay, I give up. Wouldn't a successful landing prove to be pretty much the same as passing the tests?
No. With it sitting in the desert that long the gear needs replaced. Also the concern is if they can even get it retracted would it come back down when they land. It's about do the moving parts, seals, circuits and the whole system work still to take it up/down and not "does the gear still hold the plane"... if that was the concern it wouldn't have gone flying
I wouldn't have thought so, no. The aircraft has been standing on the gear for however long in the desert, so is probably pretty solidly down and locked. However, without safe testing prior to leaving the ground, there's no telling what might happen when an attempt was made to retract the gear, or worse when it came time to deploy it on the way to landing. And even worse if it was unable to do a gravity deploy in the case of a powered deployment failure
What is the VLE speed on that aircraft?
