"Steve Brooks" <steve@tsisp.com> wrote:

<<<<< I made my 6th flight today, and after flying for .8 hours, came in to land
 after I noticed that I had a vacuum failure, and did not put the nose gear
 down.  Talk about running my day, it definitely was not good, but could have
 been much worse.<<<<<

Steve, so sorry to hear about the less-than-perfect landing, but glad to hear that the damage was relatively minor and, more importantly, that you came through it with no personal injury other than to your pride.

I had the good fortune to have the same flight instructor for all of my flight training.  The biggest advantage to finding someone I trusted and was totally comfortable with during that time was that his method was very constant and, as such, resulted in lots of repetition... the kind of repetition that forms habits instead of loosely related bits of behavior that need to be dug out of the deep recesses of your mind when you need them the most.

From the earliest days of my training, he always stressed the "GUMPF" landing checklist, regardless of the aircraft we were flying.  Didn't matter if we were working in a lowly 150 or stepping up into a higher performance airplane like a Mooney or turbo Saratoga.  That one bit of training was so ingrained that, to this day, I almost can't envision a landing sequence that wouldn't include it... it's as much a part of landing as are lining up on the centerline or the flare to me.  Any time I would forget to vocalize this checklist and physically touch the related controls I would get a fwap on the back of the head from a folded sectional.  It didn't take too many fwaps before Pavlov's theory was once again proven correct.

If you're not familiar with "GUMPF" it stands for _G_as (on fullest tank), _U_ndercarriage (down and locked), _M_ixture (full rich), _P_rop (set to fine pitch), and _F_laps (in proper position for this landing).  While this little mental exercise may not cover all the details on the printed landing checklists for every airplane, it does cover the five things that are probably the most important, regardless of what kind of airplane one might be flying. Consequently, once the habit kicks in, the chance of missing one of these five points is reduced dramatically.

I'm still part of the "going to land gear up" crowd and hope to enjoy the rest of my flying days with that distinction.  I grant that I have yet to experience the kinds of distraction you have, so my acid test is yet to come. I just hope that the "old habits die hard" maxim remains true to form.

         <Marv>