Originally Posted by
harperb
..I certainly hope I never have an experience like this again, and UA ensures that their aircraft get the highest level of maintenance possible -- after all, frequent flyers (or flyers in general) aren't much good to airlines when their pax are dead.
Thanks for the pictures
harperb!
Having said that .. you were far from being dead. There was no risk at all, it's just with the gear not perfectly retracted, the plane won't have the range that was calculated for your destination. If there were several ports en route then you could even have burnt fuel while flying -
as say Hapag Lloyd did 
!
I envy you that you had a fuel dump at near max weight! The two I experienced were on mid-hauls only and it's not very spectacular. And the only unscheduled landing on a longhaul I had was at the end of the flight and hence we already were within the limits.
Something to brag about to your grandchildren ^!