I've heard of that for some low-wings too. It tells you down; it's not a guaranty of "locked," but better than nothing.
That takes me back. . .
In the mid-’60s I was a ground radar technician in the USAF and made numerous trips to remote radar sites in Alaska. In the process of doing this, I frequently flew on C-123, C-130, and civilian Fairchild F-27 aircraft; several times on Pilatus Porter bush planes; at least once each on a DC-3 and Lockheed Constellation; and occasional other civil aircraft.
One time when returning to Anchorage from a trip, I spent the night at Hughes, a very small predominately Native village. The next day I and the other few members of the team were to fly on a Fairchild F-27 bound for Fairbanks. It was winter and very cold. When flight time came, the pilot couldn’t find the keys to the plane which had been parked overnight but the stewardess managed to get in through a window and open the plane. Although we had to wear arctic gear when flying on military aircraft, this was a civilian flight so we had to wear our Class A dress uniforms. We did have parkas but not our fat boy pants and arctic mittens, so I remember being very cold until the cabin finally warmed up. There were only a half dozen or so passengers, and I chose a window seat a few rows back on the left. Pretty soon I nodded off -- I don’t recall the details of that particular night, but history says I was very likely up very late doing typical enlisted-man stuff. Anyway, it was getting dark very soon after as it does in the Alaska winter, and some time later I woke up realizing that the plane was circling. I could see a frozen river below and recognized it as being a common way station on the way to Fairbanks. (Tanana if I recall correctly, but might not.) As I woke I realized that there was someone a few rows ahead of me shining a flashlight out the window at the landing gear extending down below the port Rolls-Royce engine and shouting through the open cockpit door to the flight crew: “She looks like she’s locked but she don’t say she’s locked.” This was repeated a couple more times as we circled. Finally a comment -- don’t recall from whom -- to the effect that we’ve got to land one way or the other. And down we went. There was a lot of snow on the runway resulting in big icy clouds and some fishtailing as the plane came to an otherwise uneventful stop. Bags of mail were unloaded and unloaded and I saw a couple of people inspecting the landing gear. After just a few minutes we were off again.
Lather, rinse, repeat -- same routine as we reached Fairbanks -- flashlight out the window, “She looks like she’s locked but she don’t say she’s locked.” The only difference was the fire engines chasing us down the runway, but again the landing was uneventful.
Guess she must’ve been locked. Good thing, ’cause here I am telling the story.
Roy
putyourgeardown.com
