Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation - Speed All Types
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Aircraft; Human Factors
During cruise flight at FL350; received a 'Brake OVHT' warning message. I told the First Officer that it was probably nothing; but that I had the controls and radios; you read the QRH. A couple seconds later; we then received a 'Flaps Halfspeed' status message. At this point; I reconsidered that it was just a faulty indication. I knew the flap PDUs were located somewhere in the vicinity of the wheel wells; and so I was concerned that there might be a real overheat or even fire situation. The QRH commanded to slow to 220 knots and lower the gear. The First Officer read ahead for me; and let me know that once the gear were down; if the message extinguished then we were good to continue; but if it persisted we needed to land immediately at the nearest airport. I looked at the maneuvering speed for our weight; which would allow for 220 knots; but I was concerned about whether we could lower the gear at altitude; and what speed would be a safe speed for such an operation. I knew this was way outside our normal operating envelope; but I was concerned that we could have an actual overheat or fire; and we needed to take care of the problem as soon as possible. So I referenced the 'green line' on the airspeed indicator; and gradually slowed to 219 knots. Since we were still about 10 knots above the green line; I decided to call for gear down; hoping that we could execute the procedure quickly. As soon as the gear came down I realized this was the wrong decision; as the airspeed (at this point obviously) started to bleed off very quickly; and so I went to max power. The overheat warning message did extinguish immediately; so I quickly called for gear up; and commanded the First officer to tell ATC we need lower immediately. The airspeed stabilized; but I was concerned I would not be able to accelerate; so I briefly went to full power for a few seconds until receiving our descent clearance. At this point I was able to accelerate back to normal speed and normal conditions. I then contacted the Dispatcher and Maintenance Control; to advise them of the situation. We all agreed; that since the overheat condition no longer existed; that it was safe to continue to our destination. I then notified the flight attendants and made a PA to let the passengers know what had just happened. We completed the flight with no further incidents. The main threat was that I believed we may have had a fire or overheat situation; and that time was critical to accomplish an action that would mitigate the problem. A secondary threat was that the QRH (and my training) did not let me know what was a safe altitude [and] airspeed combination to perform this procedure. I made a huge error in not simply considering the effect of adding a huge amount of drag to the aircraft in a marginal performance environment. This resulted in an undesired state of being far behind the power curve for such a configuration. I would have descended with or without ATC's blessing had the speed bled off further if necessary; to avoid an impending stall; but that would have been an undesired aircraft state as well. From the comfort of this computer desk I can now clearly see that my fixation on reacting to a possible fire clouded my ability to think about basic airmanship in considering whether following a QRH procedure was prudent. I think it would be helpful if the QRH contained a single line perhaps warning that above such-and-such an altitude; continued level flight may not be possible during this procedure. I would react much better if the situation were to repeat; however; I still believe we could use more guidance in knowing what are the safest slow speeds at different altitudes; and especially what altitude [and] speed combinations are safe to lower the gear.
At cruise altitude; crew noticed a 'Brake OVHT' warning message. QRH procedure called for landing gear extension; which was done and resulted in rapid loss of airspeed. The warning message was extinguished and the crew retracted the landing gear. The flight was completed without further incident.