Simviation Forums

I was playing football yesterday at my local park....whenever theres a plane I always look up.....much to the dismay of my teammates....but the plane i was looking at was an A340-600  and it still had its wheels outside !!. I live about 10 miles away from Heathrow and I just couldn't figure out why this guy (or gal  ;)) still had the wheels out. Usually they put em in straight after takeoff  :P but this plane still had em out.

Me confuzzled  :) I hope someone can shed light onto this  :)

There's no way they had them out if they weren't landing-the only thing I can think of if they had in fact just taken off would be that they were attemtping to maintain a low altitude at a low airpseed.  It is common to leave the gear out to incease drag on those kinds of manuevers.

Or, perhaps it was a malfunction. (I really don't think pilot error is possible in this situation) You're sure they weren't landing?  If the pilots anticipate a heavy workload for the final approach, it's not uncommon for them to put the gear down early.

Must've been on the approach...

I'm more than positive that the plane wasn't on approach because after a few seconds it had put its gears back up and then it turned right about 60 degrees. It was so weird  :P.

I think beefhole has the closest answer. It makes sense too me. But i cant think of anything else :S.

It is quite possible it was a training flight.