FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - landing gear lowered mid-flight - on purpose!
Old Sep 16, 2006 | 11:03 pm
  #6  
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Originally Posted by ByrdluvsAWACO
No. As it was explained to me, the heat sensor is in the landing gear bay, and will only alarm if excessively hot landing gear is retracted. This is to prevent fires from occuring within the plane.
There was a very unfortunate incident involving this many years ago with a Swissair flight (Caravelle) that experienced fog on the runway. As was practice at the time, the pilot spooled up the engines and moved at considerable speed down most of the runway - with the aim of using the jet thrust to clear the fog. The plane then would stop, return to the beginning of the runway and see if the fog had cleared so they could take off.

Of course the downside is that to stop a plane at speed required a lot of brakes - which would then become quite hot.

On this particular flight the brakes became so hot that they started a fire in the wheel-bay which then brought the whole plane down with the loss of all on board.

I gather from the flight investigation that the practice of clearing fog in this manner was prohibited.

Of course brakes these days are made from different material which can take a lot more pressure without generating heat.

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