REFLECTOR: Gear warning horn

[Scott Derrick]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree Jim.

Like I said a hundred guys a year land gear up with the gear up horn 
blaring away.   Temporary deafness?  Probably, brought on by an overload of 
distractions.

The problem with the gear horn or any emergency warning is that they 
generally do not work in the stress full situations.  Known fact. When the 
shit hits the fan people put their blinders on, and can and do ignore just 
about anything.   Ever read the narrative about the L1011 that crashed in 
Florida?  3 guys in the cockpit ignoring a "Terrain Alert" alarm...

When all is right and calm, that's when you know you will hear the horn.

I'm not saying not to put a gear horn in the plane.  I'm just saying no 
matter how fancy your doodads are and how many you can cram into the 
cockpit, when it comes down to it, its the doodad between the ears, going 
through the checklists come hell or high water that is going to get you on 
the ground in one piece.

Scott

At 10:12 PM 9/9/2004, you wrote:
><...The only thing that will keep you from doing a non-intentional gear 
>ups following your checklist(s) every time ...>
>
>Now that has a nice ring to it, but in real life it CANNOT happen.  In my 
>life from tactical jets to GA to whatever, I've NEVER met ANYONE who was 
>able to actually DO that, so it seems to me a pretty irrelevant 
>statement.  The most checklisted cockpits in the WORLD are airliners, and 
>they have two or three guys to remind each other about them, and they miss 
>stuff with alarming regularity.  Checklists are great until you get into a 
>distracting situation.  We all have different tolerances to distraction, 
>but NOBODY is immune.  Sooner or later (and over and over again) we all 
>drop stuff out that's on the checklist.  That's why they call us human 
>beings.  But we have the capacity to design automatic horns and whistles 
>and bells and sweet voices.  These things DON'T get distracted.  Sometimes 
>they don't work just right (design defects, hardware failures, etc.), but 
>on a BAD day, a gear warning horn or light is more reliable than I am on a 
>GOOD day.
>
>Anyone thinks he can stick to the checklist ALL the time hasn't been 
>flying long, and hasn't had anything much untoward happen to him.  It's 
>really REALLY well documented that AI is more reliable in these matters 
>than any of us (much less all of us).
>
>Give me the horn every time.
>
>
>
>Douglas Holub wrote:
>
>>I'll bet there would be 200 without the warning horn, though!
>>----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Derrick" <scott at tnstaafl.net>
>>To: "Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list" <reflector at tvbf.org>
>>Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 9:42 PM
>>Subject: Re: REFLECTOR: Gear warning horn
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>The only thing that will keep you from doing a non-intentional gear up is
>>>following your checklist(s) every time.
>>>
>>>About a hundred pilots land gear up every year and 99% of them with the
>>>damn gear up horn blaring away!
>>>
>>>Scott
>>>
>>>At 06:17 AM 9/9/2004, you wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>Scott Derrick wrote...
>>>>>you gonna have the throttle near closed in 99% of the
>>>>>cases when on final.
>>>>>
>>>>Scott,
>>>>
>>>>It's that last 1% of the time that will get you.  That's why I
>>>>
>>considering
>>
>>
>>>>installing a ground proximity sensor with a voice warning.  It's supposed
>>>>
>>to
>>
>>
>>>>trigger at about 200 ft AGL.  Here's a link...
>>>>http://www.flyingsafer.com/2037.htm
>>>>
>>>>Darrell Kufalk
>>>>
>>>>
>
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