Waterbomber lands with one wheel retracted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqiX6M5dkVI

This Lockheed PV-2 had the left main landing gear fail in the up position. The pilots do a nice job on the landing.

Impressive landing. I'da crapped myself.

Hell of a crosswind, too! Pilots did a damn fine job there.

I never understood how someone could operate a vehicle and not be confident enough in their skill to do so in an emergency where their life was in danger.

I know that many experienced pilots have gone down, but its always good to see what's possible, and you hope that if this ever happened while you were on the plane that you've got one of those skilled operators.

Sadly, the generally don't teach pilots how to crash (I can't see the vid,, but I suspect this really isn't a crash). It actually is a pretty valuable skill that should be learned / taught. You may never use it, but if you need it, you will be glad you learned it.

I think the most valuable thing you do when "crashing" is do NOT try to save the plane. Commit to the crash, you will be much better off generally. There are cases where people die because they don't want to prang a prop, pretty silly in retrospective.

Good job there.

Very neatly done. Looks like a heck of a crosswind, too, and not in the helpful direction.

I remember seeing Bob Hoover land like that in the yellow Rockwell P-51. Somehow the gear coordinator got bolixed up and would only put the left wheel down. So he flew along the runway with one wheel down, banging the plane on the runway repeatedly, until he shook the right side partially loose. He cycled the gear, at which point the right wheel came down and locked but the left one promptly retracted.

After about 20 minutes of dicking around, trading sides but never getting both wheels, he just one-wheeled her in. Held it level until there was just no airspeed left, then dropped the offside wing. I saw him fly the full show the next day - one wingtip and the outer aileron panel were primer. That's all they had to replace.

Not only a crosswind, a crosswind WITH the windward wing high!

My hat's off!

I almost crap myself on every landing now... I could not imagine doing it with only two wheels..

Wow, that was inpressive.

PHeller wrote: I never understood how someone could operate a vehicle and not be confident enough in their skill to do so in an emergency where their life was in danger.

Meanwhile, every day someone drives into a light pole at parking lot speeds.

Very well done. He makes it look easy.

Unfortunately, another PV-2 crashed during fire-fighting operations at the same general time; there were no survivors.

http://www.flyingmag.com/technique/accidents/pv2-air-tanker-crash-kills-two-utah

That plane will fly again, without even too much work.

Blimey, that airport is about 10 minutes from our house.

We had a couple of wildfires last weekend already, given the date on the video that probably happened during that time.

Wow. Very impressive.

good job, boyo. I do believe I'd have popped up thru the hatch, thrown both arms out level and screamed "SAFE!"

He picked a hell of a day to quit sniffing glue.

Most impressive landing.

berkeleying greasejob!!!

Nice job

aircooled wrote: I think the most valuable thing you do when "crashing" is do NOT try to save the plane. Commit to the crash, you will be much better off generally. There are cases where people die because they don't want to prang a prop, pretty silly in retrospective.

You have a good point. My first instinct was asking how they could save the plane.....good call.

Very impressive, Pilot made it look like he's done it a few times