From: hurvitz@oscar.UUCP (Dennis Hurvitz)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.owning
Subject: Re: Opinions wanted: C 177 RG, Belanca Super Viking, others...
Date: 15 Dec 92 17:58:39 GMT

In article <75603@apple.apple.COM>, stadler@Apple.COM (Andy Stadler) writes:
> In article <1992Dec11.065404.1019@netcom.com> steve@netcom.com (Stephen
>  Williams) writes:
> Because of the difference in system designs, I always figured that a slightly
> flakey Arrow gear was better than a perfectly-working system in a 172RG.  I
> talked to the mechanics, and the majority of gear problems in this airplane
> had to do with pump motors which were burning out.  Gear doesn't retract -
> pretty benign failure, I'm willing to live with it.
> 
> The instructor said that while my understanding of the systems and their
> failure modes was correct, in practice it was not worth the trouble, because
> the number of Cutlasses which had actually had full loss of hydraulic fluid
> was on the order of magnitude of "count them on one hand."
> 
> Was he just trying to get me to hire him for a Gutless checkout?  Anyone have
> the actual statistics?
> 
> --Andy    stadler@apple.com


arrows,172rgs, and 177rgs. this posting is gonna be like religion and
politics, someone won't like it but this is what i've seen.

plus one flyer's had an arrow iv. right off the bat there is a whole
slew of people with attitudes about the T tail arrow. they heard
something once about T tails so the T tail arrow has that same bad rep.
the rep was earned by the T tail lance for poor slow speed handling and
repsponsiveness, particular in the landing phase, and poor climb
capability. it's amazing, but people who have never ever flown a T tail
arrow know all about it, they think. i digress on my usual tangent.

we had a T tail arrow that spent most of it's ramp time in a shop.
rental pilots are also experts on fuel injected engines. few know how to
start them when cold, fewer know how to start them when they're hot.
hell, even owners have posted 13 different ways for each. that arrow
was always broken with some complex thing...

so the owner took the bird out of the club after many months of
problems. i think it runs fine now.

so another arrow appears in the line. 2 months ago i happened to be a
the airport and i heard on my icom the arrow requested a fly by to check
the "no light on the nosewheel". the wheel was stuck halfway down.

he went thru the manual procedures, no avail. i knew the kid and with
the towers permission asked to help. i told him to try a steep
relatively high g manuveur thinking perhaps we could "increase" the
force of gravity. no joy. wheel still stuck on the fly by. it took
violent stall buffeting to shake the wheel down.

oh yeah, arrows have gravity to bring down the wheels in case the system
fails. seems like a fairy tail in this case, doesn't it ? either an oil
line or hydraulic line shifted position, blocking the linkage from
actuating properly. i looked at it the next day as the mechanics
explained it to me.

these same mechanics, the Gibbs shop (whom i would rate a 10 on a scale
of 1 - 10 in terms of knowledge,skill, and sadly price) hate 177rgs. the
nose and engine mount design is not very worthy, think maintain. the
plane is not very favorable from a maintenance perspective, they feel.
i listen.

the 172rg, or gutlass isn't perfect either. if i say not too many have
hydraulic leaks, mine will have one tomorrow, so i won't say it. i hope
frequent and regular inspections will catch the early warning signs of
small leakage. when i check people out in the airplane, i show them
where the resevoir is and tell them if it's ever out of fluid they can
pour coffee in there, or even pee in it to get that damn gear down.
cleaning and flushing the system is cheap compared to a gear up.

i like the back-up system though. i returned from mexico with a dead
battery, used the icom to get a tca clearance (had enough juice for
1 or 2 transponder transmissions, then they told me to shut it off after
the idented me). i did not have enough juice for the gear pump though.
i merely pumped the gear down. i didn't give it a second though, i just
reached for it and continued my approach. totally routine and simple.
sure gravity works, but not always on gravity actuated back-up gear
systems.
i'm not down on them, the duchess utilizes this approach as well.
this is merely the reality.


dennis hurvitz
cutlass 5271u
duchess 6009k