Skylane 182/RG Turbo Skylane/RG
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 9.4; Flight Crew Total 1409; Flight Crew Type 1212
Workload; Time Pressure; Confusion; Distraction
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Gear Up Landing
Aircraft; Human Factors; Weather
I was on a short VFR flight to ZZZ for breakfast.  Takeoff was normal direct to ZZZ (except for some nose wheel shimmy which went away when I applied slight back pressure on yoke).  It was very hazy from smoke (although the AWOS was reporting VFR and calm to light wind).  The initial distraction was that there was an especially low & thick area of haze over the town and to the west.  My plan was to intercept final for Runway 10 4 miles out and track inbound for a full stop (local traffic was no problem for this).  Due to the haze below we did not have initial visual sight of Runway 10 until approximately 2 miles out so I chose to make a 'spacing' turn to the left back to the west to reposition and get on final for 10.   This took about 2 to 3 minutes until we were in position for the 4 mile final.  Unfortunately; when we first spotted the runway and initiated the turn I had just started my pre-landing checklist which I did not complete as I began focusing on the turn and repositioning.  While in the turn I was busy descending; and watching for traffic. Once established on final my attention was fully on the approach as I was planning a short field landing to keep nose up and nose gear off as long as possible.  This was an additional distraction occupying some of my concentration at this point.  As we were crossing the end of the runway we were right on alt & spd and power was at idle while flaring for a soft touchdown.  NOTE:  the Cessna gear warning system did not sound at all; and I had reduced power to idle before crossing the runway end.  At this point I was startled by the sudden screeching of metal and looked out the side window and shocked that the gear was not down.   I had been interrupted from completing my pre-landing checklist; allowing my focus to be making the turn and then flying the approach without realizing my error and restarting the checklist.  A factor was also my focus on minimizing the nose wheel shimmy by holding nose till slower and I did keep the nose wheel off!  One big lesson I have learned (among others) is that in the future I will treat this sort of distraction as a MANDATORY GO AROUND and start over on the process.  And also not to be too relaxed as that surely contributed to my not realizing I missed completing the checklist; especially the critical gear down check.  Corrective training is being planned for distraction handling; checklist review; etc.  Also; my mechanic is going to install an aftermarket gear warning system due to the fact that the Cessna system is unreliable.  It had worked fine in pre-flight.
A Cessna-182 pilot landed gear up. The pilot attributed the mishap to his distraction due to late acquisition of the runway. Additionally the Cessna gear warning system did not sound to bring his attention to the fact that the gear were not down and locked.