Skymaster down in Los Angeles

[patrolpilot]

The comments on Katherine's Reports speculate an engine failure, but I think he would have stated that over the retraction comment.

I thought I would add a bit to my comments about the hand pump. I'm a tall dude with long arms and, even though crouched over, can fly the airplane and pump the gear down.

I did three Skymaster transitions last year, and none of the pilots could reach the pump handle while flying the airplane; they had to be completely bent over to reach it. So I drilled in them; five pumps max, fly the airplane while looking for traffic, and repeat. This year, I had a 210 transition guy, L model, and had the same problem. Five pumps max, fly the airplane while looking for traffic, and repeat. There is always a rush to get the gear down along with fixation on this specific task.

Here is an interesting comment on Kathryn's Report...



No one can say that about my airplane, the $$$$$ are probably going to put me in the ground.