Questions tagged [landing-gear]
The wheels of an airplane. Sometimes replaced by floats or skis.
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Why are aircraft tires not pre-spun prior to landing to preserve them?
Why has someone not designed a landing wheel with a fin or fins on it so that the air will start the wheels turning before the wheels touch the ground? Wouldn't that preserve the tires longer from ...
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Why does the hydraulic pump of retractable-gear GA aircraft run continuously throughout the gear cycle?
The POH of a Cessna T210N (which is a retractable-gear aircraft) states that the hydraulic pump will run 1 - 2 times per hour to restore system pressure bleed down, and whenever the gear up / down ...
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Why would a pilot leave the gear down after takeoff for extended period of time?
Normally when an aircraft departs, the landing gear is retracted shortly after the aircraft is airborne. While watching aircraft departing from an airport in my city, I noticed, that occasionally the ...
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Exactly where can a stowaway hide in a wheel well?
My question is exactly where a person could contort their body so as not to be mangled by the gear retraction system and very limited space. Some lived and died in the nose well and as I remember it, ...
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How do the landing gear support so much mass?
The first thing that one notices after seeing an aircraft, is that it's quite a heavy flying machine. And so, one would expect monumental tires on these vehicles, yet they don't exist.
How is it that ...
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Are the spring constant and damping coefficient of landing gear publicly available?
I'm trying to find the spring constant and damping coefficient for a Cessna 172. I looked through the POH, but couldn't find them anywhere. Are these values available publicly in some design document ...
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Why do the 747's wing gear tilt while airborne, but not its body gear?
The 747's sixteen main-landing-gear wheels are distributed over four bogies: two four-wheel wing gear, mounted underneath the inboard wings, and two four-wheel body gear, mounted under the fuselage ...
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How does one "emergency extend" the right main landing gear of a B-52 Stratofortress?
In an April 11, 2024 video an embedded CNN crew documents a 33 hour B-52 Stratofortress round trip flight between Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana "flying near Russia, China, North Korea, ...
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Does the B52 stratofortress nose wheel lock during takeoff and landing?
I wonder if the B52 nose wheel is still moving while takeoff
and landing. Does it?
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Gear down on climb out [duplicate]
i saw on a live stream from Manchester, that a Virgin A330, left the landing Gear down for 2-3 Minutes after take off, a smiliar scenario i saw on a stream from Heathrow, where British Airways and ...
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Are there any aircraft with powered landing gear?
My student asked me a question this morning. It was:
A car drives by turning its wheels against the Earth. An airplane taxis by rolling on its wheels while the engines push against the air. Are ...
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Does the PA-44's squat switch disable the stall warning?
I've read the AFM and looked online about the gear system for the PA-44 Seminole and there is apparently a squat switch on the right main gear that disables the stall warning whilst on the ground. ...
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What are the design disadvantages of a monowheel landing gear setup which might have led to its historic rejection?
Monowheels have a lot to be said for them, which is why we use them in gliders. They save weight, drag, and cost, are tolerant of tire failures, and frequently handle outlandings with aplomb.
However, ...
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Why is the Constellation's nose gear so long?
The Lockheed Constellation has an enormously long nose gear, which causes the aircraft to slant appreciably backwards when sitting on the ground:
L-049
(Image by Greg and Cindy at Flickr, modified ...
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What causes a Cessna 172 and its gear to shake violently after landing and braking?
I am sure this was due to my own ignorance on proper technique, but immediately after landing in a Cessna 172, I applied brakes and some moderate aerodynamic braking and experienced an awful and ...
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What is the linkage connecting the body landing gear on the C-130?
I can't seem to find a diagram that includes this tube linking the front and rear body gear on each side. Is it structural, or hydraulic, or maybe something else entirely?
Image source: https://www....
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If the landing gear is stuck in an airliner, can the crew go down and manually open it?
There are several instances where we see the landing gear getting stuck before landing. In these kind of situations, can the crew, or one of the pilots, go down to the landing gear area and solve the ...
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Why does the Harrier jet have four landing gears?
I was looking at pictures of Harrier jets and I noticed something — they have four landing gears.
That seems pretty unusual for a fighter jet, as most have only 3 landing gears in a triangle ...
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How do I get rated to fly complex aircraft that are still Microlights?
In the most recent issue of the BMAA magazine, there are new aircraft listed that are still Microlights, but have complex features. These include Autopilot(!), retractable landing gears and even ...
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What happens if the current ICAO method disagrees with double wheel/dual tandem etc?
Is the old U.S. method (a weight max for each landing gear kind) simply ignored? Planes with 3, 12, 14 and 22 wheels are common after all but gear types with those numbers often aren't listed. If the ...
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Is it feasible to add an aftermarket hydrofoil to a light aircraft?
Could long, aftermarket hydrofoils be added to the water-skids of a plane (like this Cessna with pontoons or smaller)
Cessna 208 Caravan
not designed to have a hydro foil, to increase its ability to ...
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Would spinning bush planes' tundra tires in flight be useful?
Short take off and landing bush planes are often fitted with very large diameter and width tires, so called tundra tires so that rough terrain can accomodate to the plane when both meet.
Sometimes ...
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Is it against the regualtions to install a dummy set of landing gear during aircraft maintenance?
We will be removing a set of landing gear for overhaul, so we are arranging a set of unserviceable landing gear to keep the aircraft mobile.
I would like to know if doing so is against any FAA or EASA ...
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Why doesn't the landing gear get raised on the first flight of a new airplane?
This image shows the A350 first takeoff high in the air and the landing gear is still down. Why didn't they retract it?
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Are landing gear bay doors meant to help high lift devices at producing lift, when gear is extended, regarding airliners?
Watching some video of one Mig-31 taking off, one can see those doors circled in red in the picture sourced from it, are those meant to produce net lift and reduce take off and landing distance/speed? ...
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Why was the nose gear of Concorde located so far aft?
Was this because of the drooping nose preventing it from being placed anywhere further up?
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Why did some aircraft use hand-crank instead of gravity for alternate gear extension?
I wondered whether the final scene in The Memphis Belle where they hurry to extend the gear by hand crank (because their electric system failed) is realistic, but according to this answer the B-17 ...
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Nose wheels with camber [duplicate]
What is the reason for the inward slanting nose wheels on a Lockheed Constellation? Are there other aircraft with same design.
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How do you clean B737 Wheel Wells?
just wondering, is there any tools used to clean main/nose landing gear bay? I was thinking some machine with steam water or hot water high pressure and solvents.
wondering what is the best cleaning ...
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who can do an overhaul of landing gear?
A manufacturer requires the landing gear of an aircraft to be overhauled at a 10 year interval.
Can any maintenance facility perform this work or does it need to be an approved facility.
This is for a ...
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Has a commercial aircraft ever taken off with its landing gear up?
In the extremely scientifically accurate movie Airplane the Autopilot takes off with the gear up.
Has this ever happened? Could any commercial or 4+ passenger GA aircraft do this, say with a 1%+ ...
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Landing gear drag and weight calculations
I have read numerous books and researches, but I couldn’t find any formulae that actually work for how to calculate the following (for commercial aircrafts):
1- Drag coefficient for a retractable ...
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Why was the skid landing gear located so far aft on the X-15?
The X-15 famously used a pair of steel skids as the main landing gear rather than conventional wheels, which saved weight, allowed the skids to be mounted externally (where wheels and tires would have ...
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Runway landing with a front skid instead of wheel - how does steering happen? (Dreamchaser)
The Spaceflight Now article Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser performs critical glide test flight shows the Dreamchaser performing a runway landing using a front skid and two wheels.
The skid extends ...
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How would a wheel-well stowaway have performed on a Concorde?
There have been many news reports of stowaways who hide in the wheel wells of subsonic airliners and survive the flight.
I assume this would not be survivable with a Concorde because they'd be unable ...
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How is Spitfire landing gear powered?
I have seen a WW2 movie where the pilot of the Supermarine Spitfire has difficulties to extend the landing gear as the engine is no longer running.
This would be reasonable if the gear normally needs ...
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How is the debris deflector on the DC-9-80 ("MD-80")'s nose gear kept from striking the ground during landing?
The DC-9-80 (marketed as the "MD-80") has, mounted to its nose gear, what I presume to be a debris deflector (a sled-shaped device to keep the nose gear from kicking up pieces of gravel or ...
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Why does the 767’s main landing gear appear spaced considerably farther apart than airplanes of a comparable size?
Below is a comparison of the 767, 787, and A350 main landing gear. The larger distance on the 767 also appears to make the airplane lower to the ground.
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How heavy are the Boeing 747 landing gear?
Does anyone know how heavy are the combined landing gear on a Boeing 747?
It would be interesting if someone has also weight statistics per gear (nose gear and the four other main gear).
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Why should an overheated wheel be approached from the front/back and not in line with the axle?
According to the CAAIP
(Civil Aircraft Airworthiness Information and Procedures):/
10.4 Tests have shown that the safest extinguishant to use is a dry chemical agent and this
must be used whenever ...
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How much momentum is lost through the wheels when landing?
I am idly curious whether any significant proportion of a landing plane's momentum is lost through wheel braking vs. everything else like thrust reversers, aero drag, etc?
If I have to pick a plane, ...
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Should an emergency field landing be performed with landing gear down or up?
Suppose you are flying an aircraft with retractable gear and have to make an emergency landing on that big "flat" stretch of grass up ahead and have only one shot at it, what's better, do it with ...
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Do military bases still employ wheel watchers?
When I was in the air wing in the '70s, I had the unpleasant opportunity of pulling wheel watch. The unfortunate individual sat in a small shack (maybe 3 x 6 ft.) with a pair of high-powered ...
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How are forces on the landing gear reduced or compensated for at touchdown?
When an aircraft lands with the tires of the landing gear at rest, as soon as the the aircraft touches down, the landing gear experiences a large amount of wheel-spin up forces (because of the static ...
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Can the landing gear be pulled up while the plane is on the ground?
If a pilot makes a mistake and inadvertently touches the gear up lever, will it actually activate while on the ground and make the plane drop onto its belly?
I suppose that there would be some sensor ...
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On the A330 why does switching off the ADRs require alternate LG extension and inhibit nose wheel steering?
In the incident examined in this video the pilots experienced an unreliable airspeed indication due to pitot tube blockage in an A330. They followed the abnormal checklist for unreliable airspeed ...
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Landing gear: why is there a maximum altitude for safe retraction?
According to this article, the Dash 8 has a "maximum altitude for safe retraction".
This wording implies that there is some danger of retracting the gear above a certain altitude. Is this ...
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Is landing gear-up against the regs?
Typically, landing a plane gear-up results in costly damage, which easily triggers the NTSB reporting requirement. However, as a glider pilot I can easily see how landing a glider gear-up would cause ...
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Who manufactures the landing gear on the Airbus A350 series aircraft?
Where are they made? I assume that they are made out of titanium. Right?
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What are the advantages and disadvantages of tail wheels that cause modern airplanes to not use them?
Photos' source: Cessna 140 and Cessna 150.
According to Wikipedia here, the Cessna 150 is successor of Cessna 140. Both have two-seat capacity and a single engine.
Why was the Cessna 150 changed to ...
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