Narrative:

On pushback; the push seemed rough and lots of vibration in the nose area. We commented on it in the cockpit; and the ground crew on the headset commented (without us asking); that pushing with that super tug made it feel like square tires; but that it was normal for that. Taxi out felt normal; on take off; the nose gear and door did not close fully; with considerable buffeting and noise. We had a gear disagree EICAS; followed by a lower level gear door EICAS message. As the gear disagree message was higher; we went to that checklist; however; there is no checklist that directly addressed our issue. The ones that are labeled for gear handle are for the handle stuck in a given position. Ours was not stuck; only that the nose gear and door were not in the proper position. As the gear doors checklist also did not seem proper; we elected to try cycling the gear. It came down ok; and then on the 2nd retraction attempt (the first being the initial one after takeoff); it did retract fully; although it took it longer than normal. We did have some strange speed lim warnings on our pfd's; and the speed tapes were missing (they disappeared about 20;000 ft; and then were normal until descent; when the message came back and speed tapes were missing again). We discussed the situation fully with maintenance control and dispatch; and elected to continue to destination; as all other indications were normal (hyd. Issues; etc.). We planned on dropping the gear early to make sure it came out ok; and if not; we had adequate fuel for approximately 1 hour to work the situation while the flight attendants prepped the cabin. I also discussed the situation with the fleet tech. Manager about 2 hours prior to landing to make sure we weren't missing anything on the checklists (my initial take from all this is that the checklists don't directly address this situation; as there is no alternate gear extension checklist; it is only embedded in other checklists that did not apply to our situation). The gear did extend and lock ok; however; as a precaution (not knowing if the nose gear would buckle on landing); we did have the fire trucks standing by; and upon exiting the runway; stopped and had the nose gear pinned and were towed in. It turned out the nose strut was totally flat (whether there were other issues I don't know at this time).

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B747 Captain describes a failure of the nose gear to retract fully after takeoff and the inability to find a QRH procedure that accurately addresses the situation. The gear is cycled and retracts slowly but fully and the flight continues to destination. Upon landing the nose gear strut is found to be fully deflated.

Narrative: On pushback; the push seemed rough and lots of vibration in the nose area. We commented on it in the cockpit; and the ground crew on the headset commented (without us asking); that pushing with that super tug made it feel like square tires; but that it was normal for that. Taxi out felt normal; on take off; the nose gear and door did not close fully; with considerable buffeting and noise. We had a gear disagree EICAS; followed by a lower level gear door EICAS message. As the gear disagree message was higher; we went to that checklist; however; there is no checklist that directly addressed our issue. The ones that are labeled for gear handle are for the handle stuck in a given position. Ours was not stuck; only that the nose gear and door were not in the proper position. As the gear doors checklist also did not seem proper; we elected to try cycling the gear. It came down ok; and then on the 2nd retraction attempt (the first being the initial one after takeoff); it did retract fully; although it took it longer than normal. We did have some strange SPD LIM warnings on our PFD's; and the speed tapes were missing (they disappeared about 20;000 FT; and then were normal until descent; when the message came back and speed tapes were missing again). We discussed the situation fully with Maintenance Control and Dispatch; and elected to continue to destination; as all other indications were normal (hyd. Issues; etc.). We planned on dropping the gear early to make sure it came out ok; and if not; we had adequate fuel for approximately 1 hour to work the situation while the flight attendants prepped the cabin. I also discussed the situation with the fleet tech. manager about 2 hours prior to landing to make sure we weren't missing anything on the checklists (my initial take from all this is that the checklists don't directly address this situation; as there is no alternate gear extension checklist; it is only embedded in other checklists that did not apply to our situation). The gear did extend and lock ok; however; as a precaution (not knowing if the nose gear would buckle on landing); we did have the fire trucks standing by; and upon exiting the runway; stopped and had the nose gear pinned and were towed in. It turned out the nose strut was totally flat (whether there were other issues I don't know at this time).

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.