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New Interactive Series: What’s Wrong?

Welcome to “What’s Wrong?“, a new twist on aviation challenge quizzes. “What’s Wrong?” works just like a real flight: You’re in an airplane, flying along and there are clues to a potential problem right there in front of you—but it’s still on you to notice them and take action before it’s too late.

Here’s how it works: You’ll watch a super-short video with a quick setup for the situation and then approximately 10 seconds of the pilot’s perspective in flight. Something is amiss. Can you find it? We’ll give you 3-5 options at the end as what is wrong, but don’t expect much help from these options. They are worded to (perhaps) give some hints—or distractions from the important issue—but they won’t give anything away

Watch the video and see if you know what’s wrong. When you’re done, click through to the answer. Not only will you find out what’s wrong, but you’ll get at least one helpful tip, technique, or learning point to help if you ever face a situation like this in your real-world flying.

Watch the Scenario



The gear handle is still in the up position. Given that you’re inside the final approach fix and only minutes from landing, you should have the wheels out and have confirmed three green lights. If you had run your pre-landing checklist, you should have caught that error. Another clue was that you were high and fast when you started this approach. Do you usually see only 13 inches of manifold pressure on approach? Probably not because you probably have more drag with the wheels in the wind. Yes, there should be a gear warning horn, but unless you heard it recently, how do you know it works?

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