https://www.backcountrypilot.org/images/originalphotos/4225/4448/c455440a29c15320cf84b8d0.jpg
Defiantly don't see this everyday

BOISE -- All lanes on eastbound Interstate 84 have reopened after a small aircraft landed on the highway near Orchard Street.
The Cessna T210K airplane landed in the lanes about 7 a.m. The plane's pilot, 30-year-old Jon Brinkerhoff of Westminster, Colo., reported his engine had failed in midair as he was headed toward the Boise Airport, according to the Idaho Division of Aeronautics. He was not injured.

Looks good to me. When is before morning nautical twilight or dawn there. In daylight I usually go for the desert. I have avoided night.

If indeed he did land at 7, he was 2 minutes after the required 1 hour before sunrise for recently.. That landing doesn't count for currency.

All seriousness, glad all is ok.

Brett

UH-60andC-180 wrote:If indeed he did land at 7, he was 2 minutes after the required 1 hour before sunrise for recently.. That landing doesn't count for currency.

All seriousness, glad all is ok.

Brett

Lol!

And I'm glad everyone's ok!

It was reported that it was fuel starvation, fuel on board but failure to switch tanks. Landed gear-up but given the situation and rush hour it was a "great" landing. Eastbound freeway is quite busy in the morning.

Thanks Brett. I haven't looked up light conditions in the tables since flying pipeline. Gear down in the desert is a good option in twilight, but gear up on the freeway was fine too. The tactical situation is always fluid.

I wonder why he chose to land gear up.

Mountain Doctor wrote:I wonder why he chose to land gear up.

Less roll-out. He's clear over on the shoulder too .. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

- Joseph

He was likely pretty low as well, near orchard st. and I-84 in boise which is ALMOST to the airport... pretty much final approach. I was wondering if he thought he had a chance of gliding to the runway and didn't want to dirty up the airplane. Or perhaps there just wasn't a lot of time or brain cycles to attend to everything.

I'm not familiar with 210's, but I'm guessing the hydraulic pump is engine driven. If the engine fails, do you have to lower the gear manually? If that is the case, that would have added a bunch of work lowering the gear manually during an already high workload situation(assuming there would have even been time to lower the gear manually).

Maybe someone who knows 210's can chime in. Whatever the case with the gear and fuel situation, he chose to fly the airplane. Good job on that.

Joe

The mid 70's 210 takes around 80 strokes with the hand pump to get the gear down and locked, probably impossible to do in his situation.

The 210s I've flown (73 and 86) had electro-hydraulic pumps--an electric motor turns the pump. But the gear is abominably slow to cycle, so you sure don't wait until the very last second to put it down, like you might in a Mooney or a Bonanza. Especially the earlier ones with gear doors, the cycling of the gear is delayed until the gear doors can open, and they also open slowly. Then the main gear slowly goes down and forward, then the doors slowly close again, and finally the green light comes on. On the newer ones without gear doors, the light comes on when the nose gear locks--the mains lock first with a noticeable clunk.

I guess if I'd been in his situation, I'd have put the gear down. Sliding on the belly really limits any ability to steer on the ground, especially once the airplane gets below about 40 knots when the rudder loses effectiveness.

On the other hand, any landing you can walk away from is good. This one will take a bit of buffing out to make it flyable again, though.

Cary

As centerhillag mentioned it is in the book 70 pumps to lower the gear. This T210 is a 1970K. I put about 130hrs on a 1970 T210K last 14 months. 1973 or so then had the power motor system as cary mentioned. I always wondered how someone could gear up one. It was hard to slow the thing down without the gear down at 160 mph. It would be real hard to fly the thing at night and try to pump the gear down and look for a place to crash.