Amphibious floats make a lot of things possible. One of those is landing with the gear in the wrong position. This is a recurring theme in amphib flying, and so long as people fly these airplanes the potential for this to happen will be consistent.
Of course, landing gear-up on the runway is relatively not a big deal, but landing gear-down in the water is a positively catastrophic event. Given the number of experienced and conscientious pilots who have made this mistake, we can't dismiss it as someone else's problem. It can happen to any of us and the first step in protecting ourselves is to acknowledge that we are at risk.
No matter how good our habits, there are just the right circumstances that can circumvent them and lead us to make the mistake.
At this point of the discussion, someone usually says that the problem can be entirely solved by just using the checklist, and with that they declare the conversation over. Really though, its not as simple as that. Certainly the checklist is the first step in addressing the problem, but to say that it is the entire solution is to underestimate human creativity in making mistakes.
People can use the checklist and still manage to get it wrong. Pilots have accomplished the checklist and then absent-mindedly extended the gear out of habit from flying wheelplanes. They have failed to retract the gear after takeoff and were content to see green lights on final to the water, even though those lights indicated a hazardous configuration.
In a moment of distraction, pilots have dutifully accomplished the wrong checklist resulting in an inappropriate configuration. Pilots have accomplished the right checklist but then had a reason to change landing surfaces, and failed to reconfigure the gear. Conscientious pilots who have good checklist discipline have become saturated with other tasks and have failed to get it done. I know of an accident that has resulted from each one of these mistakes.
So if the checklist isn't enough, what more do we have to do to protect ourselves from this mistake? To start with, I believe we can make the checklist more effective by doing it at a specific time and in a specific manner.
When and how to do the checklist
As for when to do it, my habit is to execute the checklist in response to specific cues that will occur on every flight. Some cues are better than others. For example, if you normally execute the landing checklist on midfield downwind, that habit won't be of much use when you find yourself squeaking into your destination, in deteriorating weather, and have to maneuver for landing around tight terrain with flat light on water that might have some swell.
Given the irregularities of the seaplane environment, it is helpful to accomplish the checklist in response to cues that will occur on every flight -- regardless of the details of your landing approach. I do the landing checklist three times in response to three separate cues.
My first cue to do the landing checklist is when I make the first power reduction for landing. I generally do the GUMP checklist (Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop) as this covers the relevant items for most amphibs. Then when I make the first flap application, I do another GUMP check. Then when I roll out on final with the landing area directly in front of me, I do a third check, this time only checking the gear.
These three prompts will occur regardless of my approach. Whether it is a rectangular pattern, a straight-in, or some irregular exercise in snaking through the terrain; no matter what else is going on, at some point I will reduce power for landing, make a first flap application, and line up for a final approach to my landing area.
These cues will prompt me to think about the gear on every approach regardless of what kind of approach it is.
Why do the checklist three times? Given the mistakes other people have made, its not a bad idea to revisit the landing gear to make sure you got it right. For example, the pilot who was satisfied seeing green lights on final might have caught the mistake doing the checklist a second time.
It's not unheard of to miss one of these cues. For example, if you're making the first power reduction just as another airplane calls a position very near your own, looking for that traffic might cause you to miss the cue. In that case, the flap application would serve as the backup.
There are numerous things that can distract pilots from accomplishing the checklist, and there are numerous ways to incorrectly accomplish the checklist, so having three prompts increases the likelihood that it gets done correctly.
This might seem like overkill on a normal day, but normal days aren't what we're worried about. Accidents occur on the abnormal days -- when something out of the ordinary sneaks up on us and subverts our routine.
How to execute the checklist? When I come to "undercarriage" I look at two things: I make visual contact with both the landing gear and the landing surface, and I consciously make sure they are compatible with each other.
If I look out and see the wheels are retracted, I say "gear up for the water" and then look out the window at a water-landing area. If I look out and see the landing gear extended, I say "gear-down for the ground" and then look out the window for the runway I'm approaching.
The idea is that if I look at both the gear and the landing area, I'll be more likely to notice if they aren't a good match.
So far, I've been talking about the landing checklist, but the cruise checklist is also important in amphibs. It is not an uncommon accident scenario for a pilot to neglect retracting the gear after takeoff, and then go on to land in the water that way. For that reason, leveling off from the climb and pulling the throttle back to cruise power is my cue to accomplish a cruise checklist, which includes verifying that the gear has been retracted.
Survival instinct
While the checklist is my front line of defense, there is something else quietly at work in the background that can also work to prevent mistakes. This is the very way that we think about amphibious airplanes.
How we think about an airplane underlies how we fly it, and I believe there is such a thing as thinking like an amphib pilot. By that I mean having the general, philosophical outlook that the amphib is primarily a seaplane. Its natural condition is being configured for flying on the water, and extending the wheels puts the airplane in an abnormal configuration that is contrary to its basic nature.
This is different from the wheelplane way of thinking. The wheelplane pilot considers gear-down a safe configuration, while the amphib pilot sees it as inherently dangerous. This is an important difference in perspective. In amphibs, you should have a strong sense of awareness that the airplane is really a waterplane, and that runway landings are an exception to its nature.
Any time the gear is extended, the potential for disaster exists and there is only one time when this configuration is appropriate -- when you can look out the window and make visual contact with a runway.
This outlook fosters the development of what I call the amphib pilot's survival instinct, a nagging uneasy feeling that you get any time the gear is down. Extending the gear raises a red flag that calls attention to the existence of an abnormal and potentially dangerous configuration.
If extending the gear produces an uneasy feeling -- and the only way you can ease that feeling is to look out the window and make visual contact with a runway -- then you are on your way to developing this survival instinct.
I believe this survival instinct gives an amphib pilot an important advantage. Should everything else fail you, this gut awareness might get your attention and save the day. This survival instinct does not come automatically; rather, it must be consciously cultivated, and I take every opportunity to do this during an amphib checkout. For example, when it comes time to do runway landings, the question usually arises whether it is even worth going to the trouble of raising the gear since you're just staying in the pattern anyway. This is a good opportunity to drive home the point that no matter how long the gear takes to cycle, no matter how much you want to prevent wear on those impossible-to-find old gearboxes, you should always retract the gear immediately after every takeoff with no exceptions, for the sake of habit.
I underscore the idea that you should never climb out with the gear down, or ever have it down unless you are on approach to a runway.
How we think about the amphibious airplane also finds expression in the gear indicator lights. The standard arrangement is to indicate the gear-up configuration with blue lights (for the water), and stick with the wheelplane convention of green lights to indicate gear-down. Using the color associated with a safe configuration to indicate gear-down reflects a wheelplane way of thinking that is completely inappropriate to amphibious airplanes and this has contributed to more than a few accidents.
Pilots who come from a wheelplane background are reconditioned to look for green lights on final, and green lights are less likely to alert them to impending disaster when flying an approach to the water.
What is the solution? When I first moved to Alaska, I noticed that some operators replaced these green, gear-down lights with red lights to call attention to the hazard that a exists whenever the gear is down. Glancing down at red lights on final is a little unsettling. It makes you think twice and ask yourself if that gear position is really what you want, which is exactly what you should do when making an approach with the wheels hanging out.
Red lights shining on the panel shouldn't feel right. They should get your attention and cause you to question what is going on. In this way, they are a reflection of the amphib way of thinking and they promote the feeling of uneasiness when the gear is down, which is at the heart of the amphib pilot's survival instinct.
Accidents are always possible
What I've described here is the strategy I've used throughout my career to avoid a gear-related mishap, and so far it's done well for me. Of course there are no guarantees. The only thing that is certain is that the potential for a gear-related mishap exists for each of us. That is a little disconcerting, but then it has to be. In order to do what it takes to be safe, we have to have a strong awareness that an accident is possible.
Getting the gear in the correct position is a simple task. It is easy to accomplish correctly on any particular flight. But we are not just thinking of a particular flight. We are concerned with accomplishing this simple task thousands of times, under myriad, varying circumstances, with a full range of distractions, for the duration of our careers -- without ever making a single mistake.
Doing this requires habits that will protect us in circumstances that have conspired to circumvent the vigilance of a lot of good pilots.
Burke Mees is a longtime Alaska pilot and seaplane flight instructor.