Airplanes spend most of their time in the air, but when they are on the ground they need systems to absorb both the landing forces and their own weight. That’s the landing gear.
By definition, a landing gear is part of an aircraft designed to absorb the kinetic energy created when it makes contact with the runway, whether for landing or takeoff.
As you can imagine, the landing gear is an integral part of an airplane. Still, it’s probably a lot more complicated than you think. That’s why today’s post will tell you everything about this topic.
What is a landing gear, what parts it consists of, what different types, and much more! Keep reading!
Landing gear:
Basically, the airplane landing gear is a British English term, whereas landing gear is a lexical item used in American English.
The landing gear also refers to the section of the vehicle below the body, so it can also be said to be the landing gear of an airplane.
For vehicles it includes the chassis, for airplanes, it includes the landing gear and the bottom of the fuselage.
Chassis Origin:
In the early days of aviation, aviation pioneers faced the following problems.
The design of a structure that supports the weight of an aircraft on the ground.
Believe it or not, early designs relied on human power. That is, the real pilot used his feet to initiate the takeoff roll and apply the brakes on landing. In 1903, the Wright brothers attached skis to the Flyer I plane so that the plane could glide over the ground. These were the pioneers of airplane landing gear.
Shortly thereafter, in 1906, the Santos-Dumont brothers fitted his 14-bis with small wheels. However, these lacked shock absorbers and the landing was very abrupt.
In 1920, the Dayton Wright RB-1 was the first retractable landing gear manually activated by the pilot using a crank. From that moment on, technological advancements and developments transformed the early systems into the chassis of today.