IFR X-Country

Yesterday was a beautiful clear day, so we took the opportunity to get my IFR cross country flight done. Its seems rather counter-intuitive, to wait for a clear day to go file IFR, but the Twin Comanche isn't certified for flight into known icing conditions, and in the winter essentially any flight through cloud will be into icing conditions, so even though we file IFR, we still have to make sure the weather is reasonably clear.

In the end it doesn't matter a whole lot however, IFR training is almost all about the procedures. So I got my first ever experience filing and flying under IFR flight rules, which was pretty cool, and not nearly as intimidating as I was expecting. I understand everything that's going on at this point during my training, the mistakes that I do make are usually things I know I have to do, but just forgetting to do them at the proper time.

The flight as far as the training side of things went relatively well, the mistakes I made I thought I could have avoided if I was more deliberate with my procedures, but it all comes with practice I guess. Unfortunately the airplane is once again back in the shop. Landing gear problems this time. Our flight was from London to Hamilton to Kitchener and back to London with missed approaches in Hamilton and Kitchener, and during our climbout on the missed approach in Hamilton we noticed the landing gear lights indicated the gear was stuck in transition. In the mirror it appeared to be retracted all the way up. We checked the circuit breaker, which was still engaged, and then tried to recycle the landing gear. No luck, the gear wouldn't move at all. In between the seats there is a floor panel that can be opened up to provide access to landing gear motor, screw jack, the actuator arm that moves the gear, and the handle for manually extending the gear, so we opened that up to see what we could find. The position of the actuator arm confirmed what I saw in the mirror, the gear was indeed retracted fully.

I figured there wasn't much we could do at this point, so I suggested we continue our flight to Kitchener, do our missed approach, and then continue on back to London as planned.

Coming into London we tried cycling the circuit breaker and then selecting the landing gear down one more time with no luck. So it came down to a manual landing gear extension. I briefed my instructor on the procedure so he could do it while I flew the VOR approach into London. I've done manual gear extensions on the ground before with the airplane up on jacks during maintenance, so I knew exactly what to expect. Its electrically driven gear, so after slowing the airplane down to blue line, you just have to disengage it from the motor, and then insert a lever to push forward and lock the gear down. No pumping necessary, which is generally the procedure for hydraulically operated gear. Gravity usually negates the need for step 2 however. For the post part as soon as you disengage it from the motor the gear just falls down into place due to both gravity and a bungie system. It pays to know your airplane! The procedure went off without issue, I made a smooth touchdown and breathed a sigh of relief with the sound of wheels rolling beneath me. With landing gear problems despite every indication showing the gear is down and locked there's always that little bit of fear (I can't decide if its a rational fear or not, lol) in the back of your mind that the gear could fold back up as soon as you touchdown. Thankfully that wasn't the case though, and we taxied in to end the flight.