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When I was in the air wing in the '70s, I had the unpleasant opportunity of pulling wheel watch. The unfortunate individual sat in a small shack (maybe 3 x 6 ft.) with a pair of high-powered binoculars ensuring that each and every aircraft on final had their gears down. If not, there were two flare guns pointed at opposite right angles to the runway that had to be fired to warn the pilot off. I know I had to use them on more than one occasion. I think it was a thirty-day hitch. It seems like such a primitive way to ensure the gears were down, and I wonder if it's still being used today?

BillDOe
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    Just out of curiosity, do you remember what the criteria was for firing the flares? – Terry Oct 31 '18 at 19:11
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    @Terry, simply the inability to see the gears. In the smog of the Los Angeles area in midsummer, it was sometimes difficult to see, so I waved off some planes simply because I couldn't tell if they were down or not. – BillDOe Oct 31 '18 at 19:14
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    Wheels up landings must be a common problem in the military. ATC always clears military aircraft to land adding, "confirm wheels down." – TomMcW Oct 31 '18 at 19:30
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    Civilian ATC used to say check gear down but stopped some years ago. When I was flying RJs the gear warning horn was a steady double freq tone that sounds exactly like the old TV test pattern sound of long ago. I always thought it was perfect for blending into the background in a high stress situation where the gear was omitted. Fortunately, if that happens the "Too low, gear" GPWS announcement comes farther down to save your butt.. hopefully. – John K Oct 31 '18 at 20:55
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    My favorite time was on wheel watch. I got to put a flare into the T-28's prop with a solo student pilot (1965). – Mike Brass Nov 01 '18 at 07:18
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    @TomMcW That might just be because military ATC does that and civilian ATC wants to be consistent in case some pilots have become reliant on the reminder. – David Richerby Nov 01 '18 at 13:49
  • @DavidRicherby I'm sure that's what it is. They're prob required to do that for all military. I'm not sure, though, if military controllers give that warning to civilian flights or not. Never listened to military ATC. They prob do out of habit, though. – TomMcW Nov 01 '18 at 13:56
  • Not an answer, so putting as a comment - I would guess that most modern commercial aircraft have some sort of proximity alarm if the gear is not down too close to the ground, giving an automated warning. Do military aircraft have similar warnings? If not, that may be the reason that they (at least used to) provide external wheel watches to provide a secondary gear check that commercial aircraft have built into their warning systems? – Milwrdfan Nov 01 '18 at 15:11
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    @Milwrdfan Yes, they do. In the military, the audio warning system is lovingly called "Bitchin' Betty", but it will give warnings for low altitude with gear down, terrain collision/proximity, etc. There's similar warning systems for commercial aircraft, and you install them in GA aircraft if you're so inclined. – M28 Nov 01 '18 at 15:35
  • @JohnK - reminds me of a story where a F-4 pilot was flying along when an Atoll went past the canopy. He never heard the RWR. But then they played the tapes and he also didn't hear the ATC and RIO both screaming at him! – Maury Markowitz Nov 07 '18 at 21:13
  • @MauryMarkowitz I've had the experience, fortunately only in the simulator, of being mentally saturated, where at the end of a 4 hour session we did a wind shear escape maneuver and I remember being mentally fried and just sitting in the climb following the escape from the virtual downburst, gazing at the attitude display, until my partner nudged me to level off. A Brit Air CRJ200 crew landed wheels up after a flap fail at 0 degrees (where you land at 160kt) and missed both the gear horn and the GPWS. – John K Nov 07 '18 at 21:41
  • @TomMcW the way the .65 is written, all military controllers (and civilian controllers working at military airports) must issue the "check wheels down" to all aircraft they talk to. But a civilian controller working at a non-military airport doesn't have to issue "check wheels down" to a military aircraft. – randomhead Jun 21 '22 at 19:01

4 Answers4

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No

They do not continue this practice anymore. This is likely because landing gear are more reliable now than they were in the 70's. There is also the practice of Air Traffic Control prompting military pilots to check their gear is down, by verbally adding "Check Gear Down" to their landing clearance.

Source: Checked in with some of the Air Force / Air National Guard pilots in the office. They're not aware of any such practice and decided it must have been before their time. Oldest pilot started in the 90's, so that leaves you with a 20 year gap where they abolished the practice.

M28
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    I regularly fly at a dual-use field and I don't know how many times I got told "check gear down" while I was in a 172 before I decided that it was habit, not the controller mocking my tiny little GA plane. – Erin Anne Nov 01 '18 at 03:40
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    @ErinAnne I think the reply to that, "roger, gear down & welded" has been used a few times to remind the controller that his query is really only appropriate for retractable-gear aircraft. Believe that this distinction was/is in their regs, although of course you're right that habit patterns are hard to overcome at times. – Ralph J Nov 01 '18 at 05:51
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    @RalphJ Do you think that controllers have to be aware about exact specifications of your aircraft? Moreover, there are some 172RG in the air. – avtomaton Nov 01 '18 at 08:15
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    ...why wouldn't military pilots put their gear down? Why do they need to be reminded? – BruceWayne Nov 01 '18 at 13:51
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    @BruceWayne That's pretty much a microquestion, but to answer it simply: Military aircraft are expensive (90,000,000 USD each for some). In the pursuit of not destroying a 90M USD aircraft, they add the extra two seconds per flight to confirm gear are down. It's a simple fix to a problem that only needs to happen once to be devastating. – M28 Nov 01 '18 at 14:08
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    @Matt or to put it another way, add up two seconds of the controllers time per flight and see how long it takes to hit $90M in added costs. (I get something like 2.75 billion landings) – Michael Nov 01 '18 at 16:30
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    @Michael Well, military controllers generally don't operate at verbal capacity, there' usually at least a few seconds of downtime between traffic calls, so I don't think there's any lost time, plus there needs to be safe separation - the controllers don't get paid per word spoken, they get paid per day. So, it's actually zero additional cost, save for the cost of the added ink in the controllers manual! – M28 Nov 01 '18 at 16:43
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    @BruceWayne When working in "never fail" environments, you want to design systems so that all observed failures are at least one (or more) safety step away from disaster. If 99.99999% of the time people don't need to be reminded, that means 0.00001% of the time they do. At 100 million per failure, that is a average cost of 100$ for failing to remind someone to check landing gear down. So you say "check gear down" every time, even though over a career of 100 flights/day, 200 days/year, 40 years you won't typically have even one time it matters. – Yakk Nov 01 '18 at 17:38
  • I doubt even the most minimally competent pilot would ever need to be reminded to extend their gear. It's more a matter of how much you trust that the gear are indeed doing what you told them to do and there is not some sort of mechanical failure (which somehow managed to avoid setting off any warning indicators). It's a check on the mechanics of the plane, not a reminder for the pilot. – Darrel Hoffman Nov 01 '18 at 17:55
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    @DarrelHoffman Ha - you need to meet more pilots. After a mission that lasts half a day, I'm surprised they remember to land at the right base... and sometimes they don't even land at the right base either! They are all still human. – M28 Nov 01 '18 at 18:00
  • @Matt But there are plenty of other stupid mistakes that pilots can do to destroy their expensive planes. Why should ATC care about leaving the gear up, specifically? For instance, before takeoff, they don't remind pilots to check their controls are free and correct, or that they have fuel. – Maxpm Nov 02 '18 at 08:52
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    @Maxpm because in this case it isn't insurance that is paying for the plane but the brass up top that then needs to cut into their budget to repair/replace the ruined plane. Some bean counter calculated that reminding the pilots saved enough planes that the manpower cost is worth it. – ratchet freak Nov 02 '18 at 13:44
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    @Maxpm On the ground, they have crew that doublechecks fuel. Controls, that seems a bit unnecessary. There's a lengthy startup procedure and preflight checklist, which is pretty easy to follow when parked on the ground, but a bit harder to follow checklists to the dot when you're flying a highspeed fighter. – M28 Nov 02 '18 at 14:07
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    @Maxpm And all of those other stupid mistakes, if relevant to landing, are reminded about as well. Have you ever worked in a military environment, or known someone who did? That doesn't need to be the military itself -- defense contractors and contractors on military projects count too. They are extremely strict, and check every imaginable failure state, as well as some that can only be born from long, long experience. –  Nov 02 '18 at 16:56
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    I think sheer cost of the jets is a red herring, at least partially. 787's also run 100+ million, and ATC doesn't warn them. Clearly some combination of risk/benefit, tradition, (over?)caution, and random whims of management play into the military and civilian ATC's decision, but good luck to anyone trying to disentangle them... – mbrig Nov 02 '18 at 17:36
  • @mbrig Not quite. Commercial operators have insurance, military operators do not. 90M is a ton of money, and the military can't afford to replace jets while also funding the rest of their projects. Their budget does not exceed their wants. – M28 Nov 02 '18 at 17:44
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    @Matt Insurance trades irregular costs for fixed ones, but doesn't decrease the costs themselves (in fact it increases them). If not for the sake of money, I would at least expect the risk to human lives (of which there tend to be more on civilian planes) would have airlines (or their insurance companies) having this reminder added. Given that they don't, I expect there's some kind of other factor. Maybe historically, military landing gears had a lot of reliability problems and the tradition carried forward? But I don't buy a cost argument. – mbrig Nov 02 '18 at 17:57
  • @mbrig Landing with gear up doesn't always cause loss of life (I saw it happen a couple times during my private pilot training with GA airplanes, no injuries). It is definitely (primarily) a cost argument, as it's such a minor fix for such a major potential cost. The military has limited aircraft as well (many production lines are closed for certain models), so they can't just go out and buy a new one. – M28 Nov 05 '18 at 15:27
  • Remember that most fighters can carry external stores from fuel to munitions. Scraping a center-line fuel tank along the runway instead of the belly of the plane, or having wing mounted bombs or rockets creating lots o' sparks can lead to a much bigger boom than just the plane itself. It's (one of) the same reason(s) that a commercial jet liner that just took off and developed a mechanical problem will circle or dump fuel - to minimize the potential danger on landing. – FreeMan Nov 07 '18 at 18:05
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In the early 1990s the Navy used to deploy instructor and student pilots to perform wheels watch at outlying fields that were NOT tower controlled, and where student solo pilots would practice landings during primary flight training in the T-34C. Without an instructor or tower this practice made sense. I cannot speak to whether or not it is on-going.

Once complete with primary training, any landing practice at non-tower controlled outlying fields would be done with a carrier Landing Signals Officer on station. The LSO would note trends, grade all landings and also function as a wheels watch, although wheels watch wasn't the primary purpose.

During 20 years spanning the mid 1980s to early 2000s I was never aware of any wheels watch at a tower controlled military airfield, but that's not to say it didn't happen somewhere.

Michael Hall
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    "but that's not to say it didn't happen somewhere."

    I would think otherwise, as a pilot would no doubt be told what to do if he saw two flares go off at the end of the runway - meaning he would know that there is the potential for wheel watchers. If a pilot was never instructed about this scenario, it would almost certainly mean that wheel watchers were not in effect. Cool stuff about the LSO though! And makes sense that they would have someone watching for student pilots.

     – M28 Nov 01 '18 at 14:11
  • This was MCAS El Toro, which at the time was the headquarters for the 3rd Marin Air Wing. I was with H&HS repairing TACANs and transponders. We most definitely had a tower. – BillDOe Nov 01 '18 at 18:06
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    Good point @Matt. "What does it mean if you see two flares?" was never considered or briefed in all my time after leaving the training environment. In fact I don't even specifically remember discussing flares in training. The time I stood wheels watch with my instructor I'm pretty sure we had a hand held radio, although there may have been a flare gun in the kit as back up. It was a long time ago now! – Michael Hall Nov 02 '18 at 16:31
  • @MichaelHall "red pyrotechnics" is still listed in civilian Canadian pilot training material as an indication not to land at a military field (or it was last time I saw them...). Which isn't to say that they still use them. – mbrig Nov 02 '18 at 17:39
  • @MichaelHall - I'd imagine, that even without a briefing, human instinct would kick in if you saw flares going off across the runway. At minimum you'd radio in to find out what's going on, if not initiate a go around automatically. – FreeMan Nov 07 '18 at 18:07
  • @FreeMan, I was going too respond saying the exact same thing! – Michael Hall Nov 08 '18 at 00:48
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I remember the AF still had the runway supervisory unit (RSU) when I was still on active duty in the '89-'92 time frame. I wasn't an AF pilot, but I was a private pilot flying with the Aero Club at the time. I'm pretty sure the RSU wasn't staffed full time. It may have been limited to periods of high op tempo when the consequences of a gear up landing would be more severe. I don't remember seeing an RSU in the years since then.

Edit: I was reminded that the field got a new control tower shortly after I left. I believe the RSU was removed at that time as it was no longer needed. The new tower provided much better visibility to that runway end than the old tower.

We did have the 'check gear down' calls from the tower in those days. I think the RSU became redundant to the ATC call/Pilot confirmation. For a/c with 2 crew, you had a backup check on board. Most of the fighters by that time had the landing lights on the gear, so in addition to the ATC call, the tower could just look for the landing lights.

As for the reason for the calls, it's not just about the potential loss of the a/c. In a combat environment, the runway is a critical asset. A gear up landing would render the runway unusable for a time preventing other a/c from landing or taking off. That can seriously impact the mission. Similarly, the Navy has been known to push an a/c overboard to clear the deck of a carrier.

The second factor is the culture. In the civil world ATC has their job and pilots have theirs. They don't want to cross that boundary. In the military, everyone is part of the team and they work together to help ensure mission success.

Gerry
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    "A gear up landing would render the runway unusable for a time preventing other a/c from landing or taking off" - not necessarily. A few years back I was watching a joint European airforces exercise at a UK airbase. Somebody had a problem (not a wheels-up landing) which blocked the only runway. Big deal - the next few groups to depart just did formation takeoffs from one of the taxiways until the tow truck had removed the blockage! – alephzero Nov 01 '18 at 12:01
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As a current student naval aviator, I can tell you that Wheels Watch (who is a student assisting the Runway Duty Officer) is something that is still alive and well for the Navy Outlying Fields that we train at in addition to home field (North Whiting KNSE), which has a controlling tower.

To speak to the operational necessity of this safety measure, T-6B's still manage to have gear up landings at OLFs, so when you have an excess of warm bodies to throw at a problem you are inclined to keep using them.

user35328
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  • Nice info. MCAS El Toro wasn't exactly an outlying field, and the reference to "wheel watch" meant sitting in that small hut ensuring each and every plane making a landing had their gears down. – BillDOe Nov 07 '18 at 00:57
  • Welcome to [aviation.se], thanks for your contribution, and thank you very much for your service! – FreeMan Nov 07 '18 at 18:11
  • Last time I was in the RDO shack (when solos were flying) was at NAS Corpus Christi about 15 years ago. Thanks for the update. I guess some things don't change. Fly safe. – KorvinStarmast Nov 08 '18 at 03:19