Keeping gear down after takeoff?

[Marcin S]

Was at the airport today at Shep's Mound listening on the scanner while waiting for my wife to fly out on the Singpore A380 this afternoon. The Cathay A330 that left not long before advised the tower that they would be keeping their gear down after takeoff for 2 minutes for "operational reasons".

Just curious what kind of "operational reason" would this be?

Thanks in advance!

[Blake Riley]

i have seen quite a few leaving the gear down to cool the brakes

[Bernie P]

IS it 'normal' to notify the Tower of this though, rather than have it picked up on the aircrafts recorders...??? And, if it is 'normal' to notify the Tower, what purpose would it serve (slower accent/climb rate and therefore delaying following aircraft...)?

[Matt_L]

Bernie,

what do you mean aircraft's recorders?

Yes its normal to speak to ATC per my understanding to advise tower but also because it will reduce the speed of the aircraft as the gear extension/gear down has certain limitations on speed for different airplanes.

This helps massively with sequencing- ie if a virgin blue 737 after this cathay to Melbourne is off with minimal fuel it will rocket so it will possibly impinge on separation with the CX due to its slower speed for first few track miles.

Cheers

[Owen H]

You have to remember that ATC also watch aircraft and will notify them of any issues that they see.

If they see an aircraft departing and it doesn't retract its gear, the ATC'ers will be 1) considering notifying the crew, and 2) preparing to tell their colleagues that they may have an aircraft with an issue.

It is just courtesy to tell ATC if you will have something that is slightly out of the ordinary so they do not become concerned when they see it.

The most likely reason for leaving it down is as Blake says, to cool the brakes, although there are other reasons it might be a slower retraction than normal.

[Anthony J]

The most common reason that I've had to leave the gear down is when operating with a brake locked out.

On normal retraction the alternate brake system stops wheel rotation prior to retraction to reduce torsional forces. When a brake is locked out 2 minutes is observed to allow the wheel(s) to stop rotating prior to retracting the gear.

We notify the tower to avoid the "are ops normal?" call.

[Andrew P]

It has a stuffed set of brakes that CX has not yet fixed!! CX could have done so in Sydney.


I flew on the exactly same plane (CX 101) Thursday evening HKG-SYD arrived yesterday at 11.40am.

Before leaving the gate at HKIA, the pilot made the announcement about a problem with one of the brakes and that the gear would be left down for about 2 minutes after take-off

So it was for about 3 minutes the gears was down, then lifted, rest of flight went perfectly, but would say he used full reverse thrust on landing.

Banjo

Ps Only about 120 passengers so had 4 seats to expand out onto

[Michael Mak]

What was the rego?