COPA's Mike Radomsky Fills ANN Readers In On A Good Piece Of Flying

Mike wrote ANN today to report that... "Today, I just missed witnessing a truly great landing."

Local pilot Larry Grippo took off in his P210, N75LG, to do a little pattern work. When he selected Gear Down, nothing happened. He informed the tower, who sent him away to some less-busy area to try to pump the gear down, or whatever else he could do... but eventually, after nothing worked, he came back to do an intentional gear-up landing.

By this time, many around the airport were glued to ATC radios. The thing I heard from everyone was how professional the pilot sounded. When Larry was on final approach, a fairly large crowd had gathered to watch. Unfortunately, I arrived at the airport right then - saw the crowd, but missed the landing itself. From what I heard, it was just about the sweetest touchdown imaginable. Tower assigned Rwy 7 - the longest runway. Larry touched down extremely gently after mixture cutoff and switches off, just a second or two before. The airplane apparently slid for about 1,000 feet before coming to a stop. Later, I asked Larry what it felt like.

He said it was gentle but noisy - and he felt the heat radiating from below. He also saw and smelled smoke, which he thinks was the oil on the belly (yes, the P210 has it too!), burning off.

This is what I saw:

A short while later, a crane arrived, and after about 45 minutes, the Cessna "took off" again.

I watched and waited, wondering why it was taking so long to start hauling the airplane away from the runway. I was a long distance away (these photos were taken at my max. zoom), so I could only guess that maybe they were defueling. Then, lo and behold... they put the airplane back down...

... on its wheels! Our local SC owner, Kenny Scherado, had pried the gear doors open, disconnected the hydraulic lines, and lowered the gear by hand. By then, he'd also diagnosed the original problem, which was a failed hydraulic selector valve - that explained why pumping didn't do anything.

A short while later, I was able to get a close-up shot of the belly - truly remarkable, given the circumstances.

Finally, this is a shot of Larry, my pilot-hero (shown below), looking at his baby's almost unblemished bottom.

Hats off to a fellow pilot for remaining cool, calm and collected, and dealing with an emergency so very well!

FMI: www.ntsb.gov