How do you take off, fly your route and land with a tow bar attached?

Would you not experience issues with nose wheel steering during taxiing? Would there not be issues with gear up indicators in the cockpit immediately after takeoff? Handling issues inflight, etc.?




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I saw this earlier today. While interesting, I don't think it was as large a towbar as that clickbait thumbnail shows. I'm guessing that's a bar they use for big airliners. The one on that Eclipse must have been a smaller one that wouldn't be visible from the cockpit. Also something small enough that the nosewheel could still retract. Still a bad mistake, though.

The Eclipse was marketed as a “starter” jet certified for single pilot ops. It would not be surprising if most of them were owner flown rather than flown by a professional crew. I’m not saying that owner pilots can’t conduct themselves professionally, many do. This appears to be one who did not.

I’ve seen someone taxi with a tow bar attached to a light twin. They didn’t get far before they stopped, shut down, and bailed out and removed the tow bar. I dunno whether they felt it in the nose wheel steering, heard it, or someone else saw it and called them on the radio. They didn’t go very far before they fixed it though.

I’ve not ever seen an Eclipse tow bar. It may be (probably is) something that you hook to a tug or vehicle to move the jet rather than the T handle arrangement that you pull with shank’s pony on the typical light piston bird. Depending on the tow bar, how it attaches, and how the gear cycles, it might or might not have been dragging on the ground on the taxi out. It also might or might not have interfered with the nose gear retracting fully (but may have played hell with the gear doors). It is possible that there were no indications until the aircraft landed and the tow bar slammed down and started dragging on the runway.

We’re all human and humans make mistakes, but this is a pretty darned embarrassing one. I’d say it ranks right up there with failing to put the gear down before landing on the embarrassment scale. That seems to happen a lot more often than it ought to also.

Uncomfirmed news story that it was a 4 foot towbar that was trailing the nose gear. Also, that they don't always retract the landing gear for a short hop.

I don’t known if it has any bearing, but it was a 7 minute flight and he kept it under 220 knots which is well below the aircraft’s Vle of 275 KEAS. That’s the max speed in knots equivalent airspeed the plane can be flown with the landing gear extended. I’ll guess he didn’t retract the gear.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I don’t known if it has any bearing, but it was a 7 minute flight and he kept it under 220 knots which is well below the aircraft’s Vle of 275 KEAS. That’s the max speed in knots equivalent airspeed the plane can be flown with the landing gear extended. I’ll guess he didn’t retract the gear.

Anything is possible, but I can’t imagine why one would do that barring a mechanical issue with the gear.

This is why we have and should use checklists, and why a second set of eyes and ears are often needed. It just makes things safer. So sad to see someone in this predicament, but a small moment of in attention causes these things to occur. It is a good thing nothing worse came to be because of this. I have spent 5-6 hours in an Eclipse. A small niche aircraft, and as previously stated usually operated by the owner.

Standard protocol with a hand held towbar, never leave it attached to the nose unless your hand is holding it, set it down out of the way.

The only exception is pulling the plane out of the hanger with no intent to start or for flight.

As last minute walk around before starting is another common habit.

The one thing about airplanes, seemingly minor damage can be VERY expensive. That even applies to a Cessna 152.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:

Standard protocol with a hand held towbar, never leave it attached to the nose unless your hand is holding it, set it down out of the way.

The towbar that came with the v-tail was small enough to fit in the passenger compartment. My pre-engine start checklist included laying eyes on the towbar.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
The towbar that came with the v-tail was small enough to fit in the passenger compartment. My pre-engine start checklist included laying eyes on the towbar.

Yeah, the Travel Air tow bar goes in the back of the passenger compartment across the floor, right through the baggage door.

I do have one exception to sourdough44’s standard protocol: When stowing the airplane in the hangar, I leave the tow bar attached. After all, if I detach it, I’m only going to need to reattach it to pull the airplane out of the hangar. This does not apply anywhere other than the hangar.

Perhaps it was something like this



Or this

Back in my day, we weren't gonna take off with not fukkin' tow bar...

My high school was a private one and, it had a small runway and I was in the program to obtain my license, along with flight school.

One Saturday my parents flew in to pick me up for a 2 day trip and my dad was flying his Twin Commanche.

I was on the tarmac and watched him land. Lo and behold his short red tow bar was attached to the front wheel. He about shit his pants when I reached under and pulled it out.


It was the one that came with the plane and was stashed in the luggage compartment with a couple of C clamps. He didn't follow the checklist.

^^^^
In the video kkina posted above, Juan Brown said this happens more often than you would think. I guess he’s right.