2 Attachment(s)
Amphibious Gear Warning - Odd behavior
Gear Warning Problems
I am documenting what seems incorrect behavior in some circumstances for the amphibious gear warning system. I have a SeaRey airplane.
Events 1,4, and 5 seem to show malfunctioning logic.
Events 2, and 3 demonstrate annoying behavior that may be inevitable and aligned with the EFIS logic.
I have uploaded screenshots of the gear warning settings from screenshots from Nov 2020 with factory settings and from recently Nov 2022 taken yesterday. The current settings are changed slightly in an attempt to reduce the number of extraneous warnings while still keeping the essential ones.
I have cockpit video of all events but will not include them unless necessary. Instead I have documented the pilot actions and the EFIS responses in a timestamp dated series of events.
Event #1
Take off with Flaps to 3, then 2, raise gear, then flaps to 1. Reach cruise altitude.
14:37:08 - EFIS - “Runway Landing - Lower Landing Gear”
Observation 1: This was soon after takeoff and at no time was the pilot prompted by EFIS to select the type of landing. Why did EFIS think there was a runway landing?
Event #2
Took off and raised landing gear and flaps.
5:36 - Flaps still up, pilot sets gear down for runway landing on the downwind.
5:45 - Gear down and EFIS says “Raise Landing Gear”. Why?
Observation 2a: The Install Manual states that in Flight Mode if the airspeed is above Gear Up Airspeed (in our case 78kts) you will get a CHECK LANDING GEAR if the gear is not up. So perhaps this is what is happening but the EFIS isn’t saying CHECK LANDING GEAR but rather RAISE LANDING GEAR.
6:41 - Base turn, set flaps to 1, EFIS says “Select landing mode”.
6:46 - Pilot selects Runway, and flaps to 2 EFIS says “Runway Landing, OK”.
7:50 - Landed, touch and go.
8:20 - Raise Landing Gear and raise Flaps to 1.
8:42 flaps raised fully to 0.
9:26 - EFIS says “Runway landing, lower landing gear”.
Observation 2b: It seems that this will happen in pattern work since the EFIS never got out of the previous Landing Advisory mode into Flight Mode? While the flap switch is up, the airspeed would be below Gear Down Airspeed (in our case 66kts) since we are doing pattern work and the landing speed and climbout speed are both below Gear Down Airspeed. This is highly annoying however and will happen with all pattern work. Instead, shouldn’t the logic say that if you have lowered the landing gear for runway and then later raise it, it should knock it out of the previous Runway landing advisory mode?f Is there a reason why the warning system doesn’t work this way?
Event #3
9:30 - Pilot lowers landing gear since he will be landing anyway.
9:36 - EFIS says "Raise landing gear" 10 seconds after saying Lower landing gear”? Perhaps we have switched to Flight Mode as flaps are up and speed is above 78kts? Pilot ignores EFIS.
Observation 3: While annoying that the EFIS says lower gear and 10 seconds later says raise gear, it seems to align with the current logic.
Event #4
10:18 - Pilot sets flaps to 1.
10:27 - EFIS says “Select landing mode”
10:38 - EFIS says “Select landing mode” again, pilot responds with Runway landing and sets flaps to 2.
10:47 - EFIS - “Runway Landing OK”.
11:00 - EFIS - “Raise Landing Gear”
Observation 4: The EFIS clearly seems to be malfunctioning here. We have selected Runway landing and it should not warn us again for 80 seconds. It seems to be popping into flight mode even with flaps set to 2.
Event #5
11:27 - EFIS - “Select Landing Mode” - This is only 39 seconds after the "Runway Landing OK" acknowledgement. Pilot about to land, ignores EFIS.
Observation 5: It seems to be due to the fact the EFIS jumped out of landing advisory mode into flight mode during the landing process. But the flaps have been at 2 since 10:38, so it should never have gotten into the Flight Mode. If it didn’t jump out of Landing Advisory Mode, then it shouldn’t require the pilot to select the landing mode less than 80 seconds after the first acknowledgement since our retrigger time is 80 seconds.
Questions:
Under what scenario does the Retrigger Range come into effect?
With the above behavior are there setting adjustments we should make?
With the apparent logic problems, do we need to download the software again?
Harold Roberts
Left Image in Blue and rotated 90 degrees to left are original settings. Right Image is current settings in black and white.
