It's been an interesting few days. Here are some things that I know:
First, a belated congratulations to newly-minted Commercial Pilot Alexander N., who earned his moneywings in Cessna 25R with DPE Mark D.
Nice work, Alexander!
Secondly, a new and well-deserved congratulations to the newest Private Pilot in the world -- one Pilot Ken F., who earned his wings in Cessna 17J with DPE Ken E.
Nice work, Ken!
Some maintenanceland updates:
Cessna 630 has not offended anyone.
Cessna 68U neither.
Cessna 739 completed her 100hr.
Cessna 25R... we'll come back to.
Cessna 17J goes in for 100hr this week. She is in solo-only mode today. (aka "timed out")
Bonanza 11N continues her Annual inspection, and will return next week.
Skylane 073 is stylish.
So, yeah....
I have a thought exercise for you. Let's imagine that you were flying a 172RG around, running some Errands, like ya do when you're a pilot -- and you notice that one of the main gear did not extend fully, robbing you of a green "down" light.
You cycle the gear again, and the same thing. In fact, you notice that the main gear is not actuating at all -- just dangling in the wind.
That sucks.
You go to the emergency gear extension in the POH, and run it very carefully. No change.
Well.. it's time to act like a PIC. There's no procedure in the book, and the aircraft is definitely in an unfriendly state. The good news is, you have 5 hours to parley, and help is just a radio call away.
Kudos to the crew of 25R who were able to radio us for advice, allowing us time to call Cessna Technical Support for some answers. Ultimately, of course, the answer was "Yeah, good luck with that" -- which we on the ground were happy to relay. It was decided to land gear-up at CNO and give the tower plenty of time to prepare "the equipment".
Calling up with "We'll be landing Gear up in 45 minutes" like making a dinner reservation must've been a refreshing change for the tower. I expect they're used to dispatching the mobile dustpan crew in surprise situations only.
CNO Tower was impeccable, and had complete fire and safety crew available, cleared the airspace and both traffic patterns, grounding all aircraft. After a "lower than normal" landing on RWY 21, and a quick evacuation, everybody was able to depart the airplane intact and high-fiving one another. 25R, on the other hand, returns to surgery. :(
I hope we can all act as calmly and collectedly when the chips go down. That is "Pilot in Command" at its finest, and Elian, Cris, and Marian can all teach us a thing or two about keeping composure and getting the job done.
Nice work, guys.
Footnote: You may only give the "Pilot Thumbs Up" if your wheels are down.
More as I know it.
Blue Skies,
- Mike
