Small Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turboprop Eng
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue; Inflight Event / Encounter VFR In IMC; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Diverted
Weather; Aircraft
On takeoff the left main gear failed to retract. Green light stayed on and red unsafe light stayed on. Gear relay circuit breaker popped. Stabilized aircraft at 2500 feet and reset circuit breaker. Pump resumed running with handle in up position. Cycled gear down and gear came down normally. Attempted to bring gear up again and once more left main stayed down and locked; gear unsafe light stayed on; and pump kept running. This time CB did not pop and after several seconds of waiting I returned the handle to the down position and extended gear. Verified gear was down and locked using flaps and power levers.As I was outside of radio range but in a safe and stabilized position in VMC I contacted dispatch via text and notified them of the situation. They instructed me to attempt to return to home base with gear down. I obtained VFR flight following and proceeded to fly northeast climbing over the surrounding weather. Could not go IFR due to gear speed limit and minimum icing speed being mutually exclusive (150) and knowing from flying earlier and WX forecast that all the IMC weather contained icing.At the time I had 1100 lbs of fuel remaining and with a strong tailwind GPS predicted arriving at home base in 55 minutes. Reached the RBG VOR before cloud tops become too high (did not have O2 on board) and attempted to get underneath the bases and into the Willamette Valley area. This was unsuccessful so attempted to climb back up and over the tops in a different direction. This too did not work. Now I had <800lbs of fuel and tailwind had dissipated; GPS still indicating 1hr to home base. At this point I determined I would be unable to make home base and the best course of action would be to land at EUG. I obtained an IFR clearance to penetrate the clouds in the descent and reach VMC in the EUG area. Was IMC for approximately 5-10 minutes but didn't pick up any icing. Broke out and cancelled IFR and made a VFR landing in EUG.
Small transport pilot reported having a main landing gear problem requiring the gear to remain down. This limited its range and required a divert to an enroute field.