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The Eurofighter Typhoon has an interesting "feature" in that the nose gear door is shorter than the nose gear bay itself by a good few inches, as shown here:

Eurofighter Typhoon Nose Gear Bay

Can anyone shed any light on the reason for this gap? It isn't a simple case of the aircraft in the photo having a maintenance issue, as this gap is consistent across all aircraft tranches and customers.

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    $\begingroup$ Maybe a budget cut? $\endgroup$
    – vasin1987
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 12:00
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    $\begingroup$ Uh oh, looks like someone mixed up metres and yards again! $\endgroup$
    – Jamiec ♦
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 14:04
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    $\begingroup$ True, maybe its where the chemtrail exhaust is located $\endgroup$
    – Jamiec ♦
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 14:39
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    $\begingroup$ @SMSvonderTann Some say it is APU. Really? Where? People who don't know aircraft design? $\endgroup$
    – Simon
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 20:08
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    $\begingroup$ Ventilation for the gear bay? $\endgroup$
    – Gürkan Çetin
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 19:52

2 Answers 2

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Some fighters and as well civil airliners have fans ending in the gear bay. To allow for pressure relief some sort of opening needs to be created to vent to atmosphere. Various designs are available to achieve this, like the well known grills or mesh on carbon or aluminum structure skin. Or, just shorten a nose gear bay door if you have no place to accommodate the mesh and suck it through top part (see holes in the top where cables is routed) If you stick your head into a F18 nose gear bay and it is electrically powered, it will be quite noisy. Seems as the Eurofighters have the same design.

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  • $\begingroup$ A video of the Super Hornet's gear swing and a picture of the Super Hornet's underside seems to support your answer. Specifically, a mesh is visible in the nose gear door in the video, and the picture does not show the same gap present in ymb1's Hornet picture. $\endgroup$
    – aerobot
    Commented Dec 12, 2017 at 2:03
  • $\begingroup$ @aerobot - the mesh is farther ahead, same mesh on the F/A-18 in my answer. I guess that's the avionics bay ventilation. $\endgroup$
    – user14897
    Commented May 19, 2018 at 14:51
  • $\begingroup$ @ymb1 - are we looking at the same mesh? In the video and picture I linked, the mesh is longitudinal (on the strut portion of the gear door), which is definitely not present in the F/A-18A Hornet picture in your answer, unless I'm missing somethIng. $\endgroup$
    – aerobot
    Commented May 19, 2018 at 18:45
  • $\begingroup$ @aerobot - I see what you mean now, makes sense. $\endgroup$
    – user14897
    Commented May 20, 2018 at 0:48
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Could it also be a vent for tire smoke? Most Nose Gears do not have brakes and therefore utilize some form of fixed resistance pad inside the gear bay to spin down the wheel, since this generates heat and smoke the opening could assist in venting this effect.

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