Passengers sometimes hear an odd, rhythmic “thumping” just after takeoff, when the gear is retracted. Particularly if seated near the front. That’s the nose gear, and the wheels being stopped once they get into the bay. Unlike the main gear, which applies some brakes before pulling in the wheels,... the nose gear has no brakes installed. So, to stop the wheels, it pulls the gear up until the tires come in contact with “snubbers”. These are flexible strips w/ a bit of rubber mounted to them. As the tires come in contact, the snubbers slow & stop them. In the picture, you can see some rubber gets flung around the nose gear bay. Anyway, contact is not always perfect, so you sometimes get a rhythmic thumping as the wheels slow. Other times you may hear it as a constant sound for a few seconds that seems to slow down & change pitch…and slowing down is exactly what’s happening. Anyway, now you know what the sound right after takeoff is. We generally retract the gear immediately after confirming we have a rate of climb. “Positive rates (of climb), gear up”. Hope that helps!show more

KC-10 Driver ✈️ 👨‍✈️ B-737 Wrangler

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