Warbird Information Exchange

Only the military uses it and civilians will typically only use it with military aircraft (but the military ATC guys tend say it out of habit to just about everyone.)

That doesn't remove ATC from the need to observe the aircraft landing though and while it may remove any legal liability, I seriously doubt it removes any of the responsibility of the controller to monitor the traffic and ensure that they're operating in a safe manner. There was an incident in Denver where, while not found financially liable, the controller on duty at Centennial was found at fault by the FAA for "failure to monitor landing traffic" when he cleared a Cessna swing-gear to land without ever seeing the airplane. There were two guys in the tower, the ground guy was doing the ATIS at the time an the tower guy was on the other side of the cab looking at something else and neither saw the plane landing with the gear up, so there is still responsibility by the controller to pay attention and cancel landing clearance if he sees something wrong.

Actually it is very much still in use today. In the tower the controller is responsible for monitoring that each approaching aircraft has it's gear down. "Check Gear down" is very much still in the 7110. I have even used it before.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

I retired from the Air Traffic Control Division of the US Army, and worked at a joint use airport, then went to a total military airport.
Check wheels down in the landing clearance is NOT an option.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

No, it is not in the landing clearance, but if you see an aircraft making an approach with the gear up, this is the correct verbage to use. When I went through FAA school for ATC this was tought to us, and I did use it when a C-172 RG made an approach with gear up. Also, here in Pittsburgh it is used if we observed a helicopter with wheels approaching in the same manner.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

Gary, I've flown into and toured airports with military controllers on over a dozen occasions in the last 5 years and every single one of them has said "Check Gear Down" or "Check Wheels Down" to landing aircraft, especially if the landing aircraft didn't say his gear was down already. If it's not an option, then why do they say it?

Okay, 7110.65R 2-1-24. USA/USAF/USN
Remind aircraft to check wheels down on each approach unless the pilot has previously reported wheels down for that approach.let me justify here, like I said I was in the US Army Air Traffic Control Division, and we went by the 7110.65 (required by USA<--(me) /USAF/USN while the Marines fall under the umbrella of the Navy, I have heard that the Marine Tower Controllers don't mention check wheels down.

Now, in the "civilian world" I have heard that the controllers don't provide this phraseology.
Sorry, I been out of ATC since 1993

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Yeah we don't provide that phraseology in the standard landing clearance. ONLY if it is observed that the gear is up. Here at PA002 one of the busiest helipads in the country we use "3 in the green" when a wheeled helicopter is on approach.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

My tower chief almost crapped his pants when I cleared a cessna 172 to land behind an arriving Blackhawk because I said "Caution Wake Turbulance". he asked WTF am I coming up with that, had to show him that the Blackhawk was large category, least it was back then, dunno now.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Back in the day, I was a lot younger and the Guard was flying Mohawks.
I had a good friend in the Tower and spent a lot of time up there. I remember clearly that when giving landing clearence Kent would says "Scan 25 cleared to land check gear and pressure".

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Don't touch my junk!!

Gary,

Thanks for finding it in Chapter 2. I was looking in Chapter 3 for it.

BTW, if anyone wants to look at the rules for controllers, the FAA has it online here - http://www.faa.gov/airports_airtraffic/ ... lications/

This also has the AIM, International Flight Suppliment, Pilot/Controller Glossary, and all of the "Joint Orders" which are the Controller & Orginizational equivalents to the FARs for pilots. It's a great resource as well as Appendixes A, B, and C of JO 7110.65S are the Aircraft Information documents which is useful for pilots as it gives the correct ICAO code for flightplanning with our aircraft (includes just about everything flying right now with only a few exceptions), what wake turbulence category our aircraft is in, and what it's "standard" climb/descent rates are.

You'd be surprised how many times I've seen flightplans on FlightAware using oddball ICAO codes for aircraft types. When I found out the ".65" was online, I started using it any time I was going to file a flightplan for flying in a new airplane to make sure I used the right code so there wouldn't be a controller somewhere scratching his head wondering what a TR18 (what I tried to show a Turbo 182RG as once) was.

so now, the question arises, who was controlling the runway, the airboss or the tower. Ifin it was the tower, was the controller required to tell the fastmover pealoat, to checkee wheels down? as the USN falls into 2-1-24 of the .65R, or was it not applicable to this civilian aircraft in operation in the Tower's control zone.
Or was this an Emergency (no gear) that popped up and the Pealoat was doing what he thought was necessary to save the plane. Hats off to him, great job on just scraping the paint a little.

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Kind Regards,
Gary Lewis
J.A.F.O.

Some places were still doing it as of 2003 - I always had to chuckle a bit when shooting T&Gs at former Pease AFB, now Pease Int'l Tradeport but still operated by Mil tower staff. They'd say "Check gear down" after each landing clearance -- despite the fact I was flying a fixed-gear Piper Warrior.

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Ryan Keough
Stow, MA

"Three down and welded."..the proper response.

Thankfully, I learned that response before I actually had it said to me. Got a good chuckle out of the Tower Controller at Cheyenne.

So I had it right when the controller at Dicky Goober asked "check gear down". I was flying a mighty Grumman Cheetah.

Les