Hello to all the distinguished forum members,

So Im a plane spotter based out of LKO..and recently I spotted this Air India Dreamliner 787-8 taking off but as I saw the birdie ascend I never saw its gears retract..which led me to think what could possibly be the reasons behind this thing ?

Now I have seen such incident before with a Saudia A333 too a few years ago and was able to spot that bird too and researching about it I learnt that usually its because sometimes the landing gears brakes are too hot so pilots wait for a while beforere retracting the gears.

However,such incident happening again I wonder if this Hot Brake theory is the only reason behind this maneuver or there is some other reasons behind it too ? And is it a common practice amongst aviation fraternity ?

I had also read about an Incident involving air india A320 where lady pilots had literally forgotten to retract the gears and ended up losing lots of fuel.

Here are the video links -:

787-8 Air India
https://youtu.be/bT0bMgDH7no

A330-343 Saudia
https://youtu.be/0tVUy50HJpo

FligtReporter wrote:

I had also read about an Incident involving air india A320 where lady pilots had literally forgotten to retract the gears and ended up losing lots of fuel.

Is the gender of the pilots really relevant?

a320fan wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

I had also read about an Incident involving air india A320 where lady pilots had literally forgotten to retract the gears and ended up losing lots of fuel.

Is the gender of the pilots really relevant?

This is how it was mentioned in the article here is the link of an australian news for reference..almost all the news articles mention the same way so Im just stating how I got the info.

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english ... r-take-off

Just because the news article mentions gender of the pilots doesn’t mean you have to continue perpetuating it

Plenty of flights where male pilots leave the landing gear down for whatever reason and their gender doesn’t get mentioned.

It is also a possibility that there was a malfunction. Although the landing gear all look normal, there could be a logic switch that indicates to the system that one or more gear either are in an "on the ground" condition or that they are not properly tilted for retraction. It is quite unlikely that the pilots simply forgot.

FligtReporter wrote:

a320fan wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

I had also read about an Incident involving air india A320 where lady pilots had literally forgotten to retract the gears and ended up losing lots of fuel.

Is the gender of the pilots really relevant?

This is how it was mentioned in the article here is the link of an australian news for reference..almost all the news articles mention the same way so Im just stating how I got the info.

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/english ... r-take-off

Ridiculous justification. Ask yourself how it would sound if the article said: 'the two pilots, who were both male, forgot to retract the landing gear'...

FligtReporter wrote:

Hello to all the distinguished forum members,

So Im a plane spotter based out of LKO..and recently I spotted this Air India Dreamliner 787-8 taking off but as I saw the birdie ascend I never saw its gears retract..which led me to think what could possibly be the reasons behind this thing ?

Now I have seen such incident before with a Saudia A333 too a few years ago and was able to spot that bird too and researching about it I learnt that usually its because sometimes the landing gears brakes are too hot so pilots wait for a while beforere retracting the gears.

However,such incident happening again I wonder if this Hot Brake theory is the only reason behind this maneuver or there is some other reasons behind it too ? And is it a common practice amongst aviation fraternity ?

I had also read about an Incident involving air india A320 where lady pilots had literally forgotten to retract the gears and ended up losing lots of fuel.

Here are the video links -:

787-8 Air India
https://youtu.be/bT0bMgDH7no

A330-343 Saudia
https://youtu.be/0tVUy50HJpo

This is normally due to a brake on a wheel being deactivated.

When landing gear is retracted the system automatically apply brakes to stop the wheel spin. If a brake is deactivated the wheel associated with that brake continues to spin (as it is deactivated). This would put excessive load onto the gear and wing structure if the gear was then retracted as the gyroscopic forces of the wheel would come into play.

To counter this when a brake is deactivated the procedure in the MEL normally states to keep the gear extended after takeoff for 3 minutes. This is to allow the wheels to spin down.

zeke wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

Hello to all the distinguished forum members,

So Im a plane spotter based out of LKO..and recently I spotted this Air India Dreamliner 787-8 taking off but as I saw the birdie ascend I never saw its gears retract..which led me to think what could possibly be the reasons behind this thing ?

Now I have seen such incident before with a Saudia A333 too a few years ago and was able to spot that bird too and researching about it I learnt that usually its because sometimes the landing gears brakes are too hot so pilots wait for a while beforere retracting the gears.

However,such incident happening again I wonder if this Hot Brake theory is the only reason behind this maneuver or there is some other reasons behind it too ? And is it a common practice amongst aviation fraternity ?

I had also read about an Incident involving air india A320 where lady pilots had literally forgotten to retract the gears and ended up losing lots of fuel.

Here are the video links -:

787-8 Air India
https://youtu.be/bT0bMgDH7no

A330-343 Saudia
https://youtu.be/0tVUy50HJpo

This is normally due to a brake on a wheel being deactivated.

When landing gear is retracted the system automatically apply brakes to stop the wheel spin. If a brake is deactivated the wheel associated with that brake continues to spin (as it is deactivated). This would put excessive load onto the gear and wing structure if the gear was then retracted as the gyroscopic forces of the wheel would come into play.

To counter this when a brake is deactivated the procedure in the MEL normally states to keep the gear extended after takeoff for 3 minutes. This is to allow the wheels to spin down.

Thanks a lot for a short yet wonderfully detailed explanation of this whole scenario,Mr/Miss Zeke ! I truly appreciate your response.
Thanks again !

113312 wrote:

It is also a possibility that there was a malfunction. Although the landing gear all look normal, there could be a logic switch that indicates to the system that one or more gear either are in an "on the ground" condition or that they are not properly tilted for retraction. It is quite unlikely that the pilots simply forgot.

Thank you for your response Mr/Miss 113312 ! I appreciate your time and effort.
Thanks again !

My assumption is that this is a takeoff with a brake deactivated. As stated above, the wheel with the deactivated brake will not have any braking upon gear retraction, which will cause gyroscopic issues during the retraction cycle. The procedure in this case is to leave the gear down for the manufacturer-specified period of time, in order to allow the wheel to spin down. I did this a handfull of times in the 747, which left me with only 15 brakes remaining!

Who else remembers when that MD-10 extended its gear really really late?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDgvWa-EbbE

FligtReporter,

Another consideration would be aircraft maintenance.

In the case of an aircraft with damage or malfunction to the landing gear system, we occasionally ferry an aircraft from one airport to another--normally a maintenance base--with the landing gear down for the entire flight.

This is done with only pilots and maintenance personnel aboard--no flight attendants or passengers--and depending on the situation, we conduct the flight unpressurized, at or below 10,000 feet and below 250 KIAS.

e38

seven47 wrote:

My assumption is that this is a takeoff with a brake deactivated. As stated above, the wheel with the deactivated brake will not have any braking upon gear retraction, which will cause gyroscopic issues during the retraction cycle. The procedure in this case is to leave the gear down for the manufacturer-specified period of time, in order to allow the wheel to spin down. I did this a handfull of times in the 747, which left me with only 15 brakes remaining!

Thanks a lot for your precious time to answer my question Mr 747 and it just makes me feel absolutely honoured to having this interaction with a 747 Pilot

You know I have composed a whole poem for the Queen of the skies I absolutely love it and it has even landed once at my homebase LKO.

Thanks again Mr 747

e38 wrote:

FligtReporter,

Another consideration would be aircraft maintenance.

In the case of an aircraft with damage or malfunction to the landing gear system, we occasionally ferry an aircraft from one airport to another--normally a maintenance base--with the landing gear down for the entire flight.

This is done with only pilots and maintenance personnel aboard--no flight attendants or passengers--and depending on the situation, we conduct the flight unpressurized, at or below 10,000 feet and below 250 KIAS.

e38

Oh thats very intresting to know I wasnt aware of such malfunction flight..Thanks for making me aware of such flights too which I will keep in mind for it could be one of the myriads of possibilities why landing gears arent retracted.

Thanks again for your time to answer my question sir !

Wish there was video of my C-5 departure from Kelly Depot years ago—one gear at a time as the engineers buttoned some gear up, two gear required switching logic cards between the gears. Somewhere near Shreveport, we were clean and climbing.

FligtReporter wrote:

Oh thats very intresting to know I wasnt aware of such malfunction flight..Thanks for making me aware of such flights too which I will keep in mind for it could be one of the myriads of possibilities why landing gears arent retracted.

A gear down dispatch does not necessarily mean the flight is a maintenance ferry flight. We’ll do revenue gear down flights to service the customer and get the aircraft back to someplace we can fix the aircraft. The MEL does not restrict the flight to non-revenue only. Just depends on the current situation whether we want to take the fuel/time penalty.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Wish there was video of my C-5 departure from Kelly Depot years ago—one gear at a time as the engineers buttoned some gear up, two gear required switching logic cards between the gears. Somewhere near Shreveport, we were clean and climbing.

Hey Mr galaxy I hope you're doing good sir..Nice to se you after a long time since we interactes about my very first CAT IIIB experience...I wasnt aware you flew the C-5 Jumbo too..If possible pleaae share some pics of that beauty !

Thanks for dropping by Mr Galaxy...as always I truly appreciate your precious time and valuable response sir.

fr8mech wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

Oh thats very intresting to know I wasnt aware of such malfunction flight..Thanks for making me aware of such flights too which I will keep in mind for it could be one of the myriads of possibilities why landing gears arent retracted.

A gear down dispatch does not necessarily mean the flight is a maintenance ferry flight. We’ll do revenue gear down flights to service the customer and get the aircraft back to someplace we can fix the aircraft. The MEL does not restrict the flight to non-revenue only. Just depends on the current situation whether we want to take the fuel/time penalty.

Thanks for elaboration on this subject Mr Fr8..I thank you for your precious time to respond to my query.

fr8mech wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

Oh thats very intresting to know I wasnt aware of such malfunction flight..Thanks for making me aware of such flights too which I will keep in mind for it could be one of the myriads of possibilities why landing gears arent retracted.

A gear down dispatch does not necessarily mean the flight is a maintenance ferry flight. We’ll do revenue gear down flights to service the customer and get the aircraft back to someplace we can fix the aircraft. The MEL does not restrict the flight to non-revenue only. Just depends on the current situation whether we want to take the fuel/time penalty.

Our wing gear down ferried C-5s, Australia to Travis and Dhahran to Frankfurt.

As mentioned, a deactivated brake is the most common reason.

A rarer possibility is a reactive windshear warning on climbout. Configuration should not be changed with windshear.

Starlionblue wrote:

As mentioned, a deactivated brake is the most common reason.

A rarer possibility is a reactive windshear warning on climbout. Configuration should not be changed with windshear.

Hey Mr Starlion...Its so nice to see you too after such a long time.I hope you and your near and dear ones are doing fine and all of you are in the best of your health.

Thanks for your time and response Mr Starlion...I had no idea that even windshear warning during takeoff could trigger such scenario will add this possibility to my list of possible causes for unretracted gears.

Thanks again for your response Mr Starlion.I truly appreciate your time and effort.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

fr8mech wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

Oh thats very intresting to know I wasnt aware of such malfunction flight..Thanks for making me aware of such flights too which I will keep in mind for it could be one of the myriads of possibilities why landing gears arent retracted.

A gear down dispatch does not necessarily mean the flight is a maintenance ferry flight. We’ll do revenue gear down flights to service the customer and get the aircraft back to someplace we can fix the aircraft. The MEL does not restrict the flight to non-revenue only. Just depends on the current situation whether we want to take the fuel/time penalty.

Our wing gear down ferried C-5s, Australia to Travis and Dhahran to Frankfurt.

WooW..May I ask you at what ALT did you cruise with belly gears down Mr.Galaxy ? It seems a long 3 or 4 hour flight from Dhahran to Frankfurt so the extra drag that belly gears may have caused must be extra fuel consuming and effected its speed ALT etc right.

It was 11 hours, normally half that. Max speed with a gear hanging was about 220 knots about F200. Gear Mach limit was the limit. IIRC, only one leg was hanging the rest were retracted. We could individually extend and retract gears

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

It was 11 hours, normally half that. Max speed with a gear hanging was about 220 knots about F200. Gear Mach limit was the limit. IIRC, only one leg was hanging the rest were retracted. We could individually extend and retract gears

thanks for the info Mr Galaxy !

There was almost no system in that plane that you couldn’t work around a problem. The engineers could use wrenches to position air conditioning valves, manually position hydraulic valves, pull circuit breakers and disable landing gear movement or enable only certain legs. Sticky outflow valve problem, engineer would go back and hit it with a broom. Ten hydraulic pumps, four systems that could pressurize an adjacent system, if both it’s pumps failed. Two APUs that could power the power all hydraulics. Amazing plane except you using most of those workarounds every day.

The drunken monkeys were used in plumbing the flight controls—4 systems but loss of two could leave you hurting with degraded roll control, the wrong the systems out and you be UA 232 in pitch and roll. Never happened, but the 1011 had a superior design there. There were a few times 1011s were down to one system and made a normal landing.

FligtReporter wrote:

seven47 wrote:

My assumption is that this is a takeoff with a brake deactivated. As stated above, the wheel with the deactivated brake will not have any braking upon gear retraction, which will cause gyroscopic issues during the retraction cycle. The procedure in this case is to leave the gear down for the manufacturer-specified period of time, in order to allow the wheel to spin down. I did this a handfull of times in the 747, which left me with only 15 brakes remaining!

Thanks a lot for your precious time to answer my question Mr 747 and it just makes me feel absolutely honoured to having this interaction with a 747 Pilot

You know I have composed a whole poem for the Queen of the skies I absolutely love it and it has even landed once at my homebase LKO.

Thanks again Mr 747

You're very welcome! I'm honored to be able to contribute to the conversation.

seven47 wrote:

FligtReporter wrote:

seven47 wrote:

My assumption is that this is a takeoff with a brake deactivated. As stated above, the wheel with the deactivated brake will not have any braking upon gear retraction, which will cause gyroscopic issues during the retraction cycle. The procedure in this case is to leave the gear down for the manufacturer-specified period of time, in order to allow the wheel to spin down. I did this a handfull of times in the 747, which left me with only 15 brakes remaining!

Thanks a lot for your precious time to answer my question Mr 747 and it just makes me feel absolutely honoured to having this interaction with a 747 Pilot

You know I have composed a whole poem for the Queen of the skies I absolutely love it and it has even landed once at my homebase LKO.

Thanks again Mr 747

You're very welcome! I'm honored to be able to contribute to the conversation.

The pleasure is all mine Sir !

Pretty common on hot days in places like Las Vegas to do in the A320 after a long taxi(we don't have brake fans on like 80% of the fleet). If the brake temps were close to the 300C limit we would delay retraction for them to cool. Once they are retracted you would be surprised at cruise, even on a 3-4 hour flight, how long they stay warm. Similarly if it's snowing and slushy a delayed retraction would help get some of the wetness off the wheels and brake/gear components on all the jets I've flown.

As someone mentioned before it could be a malfunction. I had a LGCIU(Landing Gear Control Interfacing Unit)bite the dust on me once or twice on the Airbus. It takes about 45-60 seconds, I think it was, to get an ECAM to recycle the gear handle. This action switches it on to the other LGCIU computer for the gear to come up.

tb727 wrote:

Pretty common on hot days in places like Las Vegas to do in the A320 after a long taxi(we don't have brake fans on like 80% of the fleet). If the brake temps were close to the 300C limit we would delay retraction for them to cool. Once they are retracted you would be surprised at cruise, even on a 3-4 hour flight, how long they stay warm. Similarly if it's snowing and slushy a delayed retraction would help get some of the wetness off the wheels and brake/gear components on all the jets I've flown.

As someone mentioned before it could be a malfunction. I had a LGCIU(Landing Gear Control Interfacing Unit)bite the dust on me once or twice on the Airbus. It takes about 45-60 seconds, I think it was, to get an ECAM to recycle the gear handle. This action switches it on to the other LGCIU computer for the gear to come up.

Thanks for your valuable information sir and contributing to my thread.I appreciate your time and effort.