Originally Posted by
invisible
I have several questions on fact that it landed without landing gear and flaps:
- How long before landing and what altitude flaps and lending gear is released? At my recollection, minimum 20 min before landing, no?
- Does release and locking of landing gear gravity based or is it powered?
Thanks
I'm not knowledgeable enough to answer your last two questions, but on these:
- cabins will generally be secured prior to landing about 20 minutes before. At this stage the aircraft will be in descent, but its speed may not be significantly less than during cruise and therefore the extra lift enabled by operating the flaps would not yet be required. "Expanding" the size of the wings would therefore not take place at that stage - maybe not for another 10-15 minutes, and in stages as the speed decreased.
- landing gear is hydraulically raised and lowered. Should there be a hydraulic failure, the gear should drop anyway on gravity release. Lowering the gear is very late in the landing process - perhaps the last couple of minutes, at about 1,500 ft.