Typhoon landed gears up

Stiff_Cookie · 1 May 2008 at 18:44

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353665,00.html

I wonder if they will be able to repair the aircraft. If they are I bet it will cost them a pretty penny.

The article says that the pilot wont be fired, so I suppose its a desk job for him then. I dont think forgetting to drop the landing gear is a great career advancer

Glaucus · 1 May 2008 at 18:45

How can you forget that, surly there will be 101 alarms sounding.

Indy500 · 1 May 2008 at 18:46

More time in the simulator perhaps.

JohnnyG · 1 May 2008 at 18:49

Now there's a subject just crying out to be fail picced

Tomsk · 1 May 2008 at 18:51

Pilot was probably talking on his mobile phone.

Gaverick · 1 May 2008 at 18:52

Hmm I'm unsure if he would have forgot to lower the wheels, I'm guessing it was an undercarriage failure with a dramatic spin put on it by the reporter.

^^Gord^^ · 1 May 2008 at 18:52

A lot of speculation going on around this at the moment, especially in aviation circles. There are no confirmed facts, even the fact a Typhoon has been damaged hasn't been acknowledged by the RAF yet.

The Sun's 'report' seems collected from those various aviation websites. I'll wait until the Board of Inquiry releases their report.

AcidHell2 said:
How can you forget that, surly there will be 101 alarms sounding.

I'm told it can be disabled by pulling a circuit breaker and isn't unusual for test pilots to do that.

Slam62 · 1 May 2008 at 18:52

look the media have never been anywhere near accurate when reporting these things

Ghosteh · 1 May 2008 at 18:54

^^Gord^^ said:
I'm told it can be disabled by pulling a circuit breaker and isn't unusual for test pilots to do that.

He wasn't a test pilot though, he was a regular pilot doing War Games, I would imagine it would be more of a failure to blame, but who knows.

Dj_Jestar · 1 May 2008 at 18:57

Another possible cause of the accident is landing gear failure

Let's get SENSATIONAL!

Azagoth · 1 May 2008 at 18:58

For all we know, he did deploy the undercarriage and it was displayed as such on his MFD. Whether or not some malfunction occurred that prevented the actual gear from deploying will probably never be known.

^^Gord^^ · 1 May 2008 at 19:05

Ghosteh said:
He wasn't a test pilot though, he was a regular pilot doing War Games, I would imagine it would be more of a failure to blame, but who knows.

Don't believe everything you read in the Sun

About the only thing that is known for sure is the plane was being used by 17(R) Sqn who are the Typhoon Operational Evaluation Unit. They are responsible for the testing, development and acceptance of the Typhoon and anything connected to it into the operational RAF Typhoon squadrons. That's pretty much a test pilot in my book.

They were out at China Lake in the US as it is one of the few places were you can drop live laser guided bombs. They were doing this, it wasn't any form of "war games".

Ed · 1 May 2008 at 19:06

Perhaps the alarms were ringing, he pulled the breaker to silence it, then proceeded to land without wheels on purpose!

Would a Eurofighter have a bank of breakers in arms reach? It's not a Piper...

Dist · 1 May 2008 at 20:21

Doesnt landing gear cause lots of drag and such? So surely an experienced pilot would notice a difference when attempting to land when the landing gear is up.

Doonhamer · 1 May 2008 at 20:26

I only found out this week the guy teaching us SQL at college worked on the Typhoon during his degree. Did some software interface work.

dannyjo22 · 1 May 2008 at 20:30

Ed said:
Perhaps the alarms were ringing, he pulled the breaker to silence it, then proceeded to land without wheels on purpose!

Would a Eurofighter have a bank of breakers in arms reach? It's not a Piper...

He would have muted the warning, much like when the global express pilot muted the intergrated avionics computer and so didnt get the warning when he landed gear up.

He likely muted it to stop other close to the envelope warnings.

Ed · 1 May 2008 at 20:32

Dist said:
Doesnt landing gear cause lots of drag and such? So surely an experienced pilot would notice a difference when attempting to land when the landing gear is up.

Why? Landing gear hardly affects speed, that's what throttle, flaps and if necessary, speed brakes are for.

Ed · 1 May 2008 at 20:34

dannyjo22 said:
He would have muted the warning, much like when the global express pilot muted the intergrated avionics computer and so didnt get the warning when he landed gear up.

He likely muted it to stop other close to the envelope warnings.

If that's the case, he's a fool then. I wonder if he has to pay for the damage weekly? Can't be cheap!

BigglesPiP · 1 May 2008 at 20:43

They lower the gear, then later on check for 3 green lights... If he forgot, he needs a change of career.

Werewolf · 1 May 2008 at 20:45

Ed said:
If that's the case, he's a fool then. I wonder if he has to pay for the damage weekly? Can't be cheap!

I wouldn't be surprised if under some circumstances it's accepted operating procedure - if he was flowing "too low" and got the "no gear" message earlier and turned it off for example during a low level test (I would imagine it sounds if they are flying at below radar level for example, where the computer doesn't know he's not intending to try and land).

As someone has already said, at the moment all we know is that the gear wasn't down when he landed - I wouldn't trust a newspaper (especially the Sun

) for an accurate report if they were rushing to print/break the story. With some papers (and i've said this before) I would like confirmation the date printed on it is correct

Typhoon landed gears up

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