Landing gear

Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called alighting gear by some manufacturers, such as the Glenn L. Martin Company. For aircraft, Stinton makes the terminology distinction undercarriage (British) = landing gear (US).

For aircraft, the landing gear supports the craft when it is not flying, allowing it to take off, land, and taxi without damage. Wheeled landing gear is the most common, with skis or floats needed to operate from snow/ice/water and skids for vertical operation on land. Retractable undercarriages fold away during flight, which reduces drag, allowing for faster airspeeds. Landing gear must be strong enough to support the aircraft and its design affects the weight, balance and performance. It often comprises three wheels, or wheel-sets, giving a tripod effect.

Some unusual landing gear have been evaluated experimentally. These include: no landing gear (to save weight), made possible by operating from a catapult cradle and flexible landing deck: air cushion (to enable operation over a wide range of ground obstacles and water/snow/ice); tracked (to reduce runway loading).

For launch vehicles and spacecraft landers, the landing gear usually only supports the vehicle on landing and during subsequent surface movement, and is not used for takeoff.

Given their varied designs and applications, there exist dozens of specialized landing gear manufacturers. The three largest are Safran Landing Systems, Collins Aerospace (part of Raytheon Technologies) and Héroux-Devtek.

The landing gear represents 2.5 to 5% of the maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) and 1.5 to 1.75% of the aircraft cost, but 20% of the airframe direct maintenance cost. A suitably designed wheel can support 30 t (66,000 lb), tolerate a ground speed of 300 km/h and roll a distance of 500,000 km (310,000 mi) ; it has a 20,000 hours time between overhaul and a 60,000 hours or 20 year life time.

Wheeled undercarriages normally come in two types:

The taildragger arrangement was common during the early propeller era, as it allows more room for propeller clearance. Most modern aircraft have tricycle undercarriages. Taildraggers are considered harder to land and take off (because the arrangement is usually unstable, that is, a small deviation from straight-line travel will tend to increase rather than correct itself), and usually require special pilot training. A small tail wheel or skid/bumper may be added to a tricycle undercarriage to prevent damage to the underside of the fuselage if over-rotation occurs on take-off leading to a tail strike. Aircraft with tail-strike protection include the B-29 Superfortress, Boeing 727 trijet and Concorde. Some aircraft with retractable conventional landing gear have a fixed tailwheel. Hoerner estimated the drag of the Bf 109 fixed tailwheel and compared it with that of other protrusions such as the pilot's canopy.