A friend of mine is retired from the Air Force where he was left seat in the KC135 tanker. Coming back to Minot after a routine training flight, they discovered that the nose gear would not lower. The gear door was wide open, but the gear would not drop. They spent several hours in the air trying to troubleshoot the problem, during which they themselves had to be refueled in mid-air to give them more time. They talked to numerous mechanics and engineers on the ground with no luck in lowering the gear. A last ditch effort involved slamming the mains on the runway real hard to try to jar the gear loose. No joy. So, the decision was made to land with the nose gear up - there was no choice.
With video cameras rolling from 4 different vantage points (for accident investigation purposes) Bob came in to land. He put the mains on the runway, and proceeded to hold the nose off the runway so long I could not believe my eyes. He did a "wheelie" down the Minot runway for several thousand feet - much longer than usual to allow excess speed to bleed off. And he just allowed the nose to lower itself as softly as he could. Of course, the gear door was toast as it crumpled back on itself, and sparks flew as the bird continued to skid for a bit. But no major fire and everyone (briskly) got away with hardly a scratch. The amazing thing - when they finally came to a stop, the nose was squarely on the runway centerline. Now that's airmanship.
The coolest part..... his flying buddies got copies of the footage, put it all to Top Gun music (no kidding!) and gave it to him as a present. It is an amazing piece of film.
