LAX Fed Ex Belly Landing Questions

A few questions-

Is there not a manual system to crank down landing gear?

The Left gear would not go down. I am assuming fuel tanks are in the wings do you have an option to select which side to dump?

Did this plane stay up right while landing on the gear that was down and fell over after it stopped?

can someone ballpark 30 mins of fuel into gallons?


I listened to the ATC recording and they were pretty damn calm.

 

I did not see that video until now. Thanks for posting.

 

The 767 cannot dump fuel.

 

Raises the question of why? Hasn't this been a safety feature forever?

 

If I can remember, the gear uplock is hydraulically released and the gear should free falloff if the doors are open. Then the down lock is pumped in. My recall on the 767 is really fuzzy so I'm taking another SWAG. 42 years ago.

 

In The ATC recording The pilot says

unload the aircraft and get a Green indication.

I took this to mean fuel. Is there something else they are referring to?

 

I seem to remember fuel jettison masts outboard of the low speed ailerons.

 

Yeah this isn't making sense. Landing gears are design to deploy even if power is lost...just needs gravity and it will lock into place by the plane slight roll. I can see the door open on approach @ 40 seconds in the video.

 

Here is a 744 D check showing how that works. youtu.be/x_yHtfGH0nI?t=594

 

The only thing that I can think of is a mechanical jam in the up lock. There isn't any way to jam up the whole main gear mechanism.

 

I saw info that the 767 could not dump fuel.

Now I see that the 762 cannot, but the 763 can dump fuel.
Hope that is correct.

 

I'm digging around in my head and I remember being at the functional test of 767 number 1 and watching the gear in the free fall test and the immediate loud noise of the up lock release and the gear dropping quickly with a lot of noise from the hydraulics left in the circuit of the system to snub the free fall . The down lock on the side strut is spring loaded and when the lugs are aligned, it slams into lock. It's a beautiful system to watch with all the weird rotational angles of the side struts and the locks working as designed. The 707 was much more simple with a drag strut aligned with the buttock lines and the single huge side strut aligned with the station lines but the operation was pretty much the same. The up lock was hooked into a lug on the side of the oleo. Very clean, very simple, and totally reliable.

 

What they mean is that they pushed over close to zero g (unloaded the wing)-- sometimes that will allow the gear to free-fall.

My 767 instructor acquaintance thought this was a very unusual scenario. He had never heard of it happening before.

As for fuel dump, that is generally related to the difference between max takeoff weight and max landing weight. If you would end up landing too far over max landing weight with full fuel, you are going to be required to have some sort of fuel dump or jettison system.

Bob might know, but I would guess that it is full fuel plus max zero fuel weight, and then how does that relate to a max structural landing weight.

I've had two unsafe gear indications in my career, that I can recall. One of them was just a sensor issue (in a Falcon 50), although we couldn't be sure until we were on the ground with the gear pinned-- it acted like one main was still up. The other was a stuck nose gear in a Turbo Commander, and it really was stuck. However, a combination of unloading the aircraft (zero g) and moving the nosewheel steering back and forth, and Bang! It came down. Green light. Nosewheel steering broke, though... but that is barely noticeable in a Commander.

These guys did a great, by the book, job.

 

Re max landing weight. I thought of that and failed to look it up because I was concentrating on the mechanicals. I have lost a lot of figures over the years but I do remember that some airplanes have had MLW raised thus no fuel dump requirements. I'm not up on this anymore but a good pilot can pull it off. Then there's tires.

 

and braking performance

 

Not a 76 guy but I’ll do my best...
1. Gear on the big jets is typically held up (retracted) by hydraulic pressure and mechanical up-lock hooks. Emergency deployment involves pulling a cable that releases system pressure and the the up-lock hook causing the gear to fall (in theory).
2. Fuel jettison is typically available on aircraft where the maximum allowable take-off weight is well above the maximum gross landing weight. So in an air return situation (ie engine failure on departure), you’re not exceeding the max gross landing weight. You can probably only jettison from both sides at the same time, but you can always balance by cross-feed. I’m sure the 767 has more than 2 tanks.
3. The recommended landing procedure would most likely have you hold the damaged side off as long as practical.
4. I don’t know what the 767 burns, but I’ll ballpark it. The burn will be increased because you have two gear extended as well as some flaps along with flying at low altitudes (higher burn).
So, if they’re burning 6,000 lbs/hr. You’d be burning about 895 gallons/hr or 450 gallons in 30 min. Jet A weighs about 6.7 lbs/gal

 

Cool Reply. Thanks

 

I am reminded of checking with the 777 landing gear group guy one day and asked him how things were going in the landing gear group. Answer: ' Oh, UP AND DOWN UP AND DOWN"

 

New autobrakes selection, 1, 2, 3, Nacelle L, Nacelle R, MAX.

What?!

;-)