Talk:Landing gear

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Inflation

It would be interesting to see more information on the requirements for pressurization of the tires. For the Concorde, the inflation pressure was at something around 225 psi. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.179.160 (talk)

Close - Concorde's tyre pressures were actually 232 lb/sq in. for the main wheels, and 191 lb/sq in. for the nose wheels. The tyres themselves were rated to 250 mph, although the final Michelin NZG ones introduced after the Paris crash were rated to 280 mph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 14:46, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed gear

Hey folks, I replaced the photo of the Airbus wheels with that of some Junkers Ju 87s, to illustrate fixed(and taildragging) landing gear. Two different shots of airliner wheels seemed kinda redundant too. Hope nobody minds. Gooberliberation 10:03, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I do mind because there was no reason to remove a good quality useful pic. Just add your own pic but please don't remove existing material unless it's low quality or doesn't illustrate the subject. There's more than one airliner undercarriage configuration! Best Wishes - Adrian Pingstone 12:24, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, well, looks like just adding the extra picture fixed the problem of having a big chunk of whitespace near the bottom of the page! Sorry about that. Gooberliberation 17:53, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, thanks for your understanding, and I'm sorry if I sounded a little unfriendly above, I didn't intend to - Adrian Pingstone 18:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stowaways

The info under this heading was literally the

Maxrandom777 22:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply
]

19 Oct 2007 Edit

I added 0-2 skid data based on my experience at Cessna factory - I witnessed the test (wheels-up landing on the grassy area alongside the factory's Pawnee Plant airstrip). I added stowaway picture information based on seeing the picture in a newspaper (I don't have the newspaper now, so I cannot reference it). I added other factoids based on my knowledge of the aircraft involved. Hope everybody is OK with this entry.Raymondwinn 12:05, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Overall a very fine article, but I was wondering why there isn't a simple graphic explaining the nomenclature to acompany the landing gear illustration. I'm new to editing, so please forgive me for not being able to properly identify myself, but I'm Gibby78. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gibby78 (talk • contribs) 23:42, 3 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably because no one has yet drawn one! If you have some talent in technical illustration you can give it a try! Also to identify yourself when leaving a talk page message just put ~~~~ (four tildes) and the software will sign it for you. - Ahunt (talk) 14:01, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Helicopter Landing Gear

This type of landing is very unique and could be classified as another type of landing gear. There are various types of gear systems both civil and military. I think including this on the page would be beneficial.--The Founders Intent 17:06, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What about a car?

I thought undercarriage could also mean the chassis of a car, but Im not sure. If so, we should add a link to that article. Velle (talk) 13:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the term originates in the
carriage' but it later came to refer to any set of wheels underneath a vehicle. In the early days of aviation it was sometimes also referred to as 'alighting gear' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.88.98 (talk) 20:40, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply
]
IIRC, the term 'bogey' refers to at least four or more wheels on a common leg, so, strictly speaking a single (or twin wheel) nosewheel assembly wouldn't be a proper bogey. A bogey is a complete set of multiple wheels on a single leg, usually pivoted about the centre of the assembly to allow the rear-most wheels to contact the ground first on landing. IIARC, the first civil aircraft to use these was the
B-36 also had a bogey undercarriage in production versions, although, again, the prototypes had single large mainwheels. Unusually, the Avro Vulcan had eight-wheel main bogies, whereas the Vickers Valiant had two-wheels in tandem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.66.177 (talk) 09:53, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply
]

Launch vehicle landing gear

I just created a section stub for Launch vehicle landing gear. Recent technology advances, and the commitment of private capital to experiment with first-stage booster rocket return to Earth landings, has changed the landscape where landing gear are no longer the exclusive province of aviation. I would be most interested in improving that little stub section, and also in receiving feedback from other editors on whether it might be better to have only a very brief summary of the subject here in this article, with perhaps a link to a new article on landing gear as used on space launch vehicles. I'm okay either way, and certainly don't know that the limited work on such technology to date would warrant a separate article. So please, do comment here, and see how we might improve this. Cheers. N2e (talk) 17:42, 26 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Aviation" = "Aerospace"; a launch vehicle that is coming in to land is very much aviation and in fact an aircraft (the Space Shuttle is an aircraft, for instance - both a spaceplane and the world's fastest glider...) - The Bushranger One ping only 03:34, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Bushranger, I very much agree with your comments on "Aviation" = "Aerospace" and that a launch vehicle that is coming in to land definitely fits the broad definition of aerospace. However, if launch vehicle landing gear are "in scope" for this article, then its only natural that the lede section will need to be modified a bit to reflect the wider scope, and I don't want to be doing that until after a consensus is achieved, just so other editors who have been working this article for a long time are not unduly bothered by the scope widening. Thanks for your comment. N2e (talk) 09:24, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The lede needs to act as a summary of the article taking in appropriate weight for the elements covered. If the legs on a space vehicle (under development) contribute a very small part of the article then they don't need to be mentioned much, if at all, in the lede compared to say wheels, skids and floats. GraemeLeggett (talk) 10:30, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely, landing gear is landing gear whatever vehicle it is fitted to. And don't worry too much about others' sensibilities in the first instance, only if we squawk - let
WP:BRD be your guide. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:40, 27 October 2013 (UTC)[reply
]
Thanks Bushranger, GraemeLeggett and Steelpillow for weighing in. Looks like we are all quite fine then with just a brief section on the use of landing gear on launch vehicles in this article. And since no one has changed my initial draft section stub too much, will assume that is about the right amount of narrative on the matter. I agree with Graeme, the lede should not make too big a deal of what is a very small part of the article, but it probably does need a very brief summary mention, just to illustrate that scope is beyond aircraft, and beyond rolling-wheeled landing gear. Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:39, 29 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I made a small change to the lede, in order to reflect the newly agreed to article scope, while endeavoring to keep the spacecraft usage a very light/small amount of the lede, per Graeme's good point. Please feel free to improve as you see fit. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:56, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed change of article name (2013)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

It seems to have been deemed by Aircraft folks here that "undercarriage" and "landing gear" mean the same thing to them. Therefore from the Aircraft point of view it does not matter which we call this article. But spaceflight folks talk only of "landing gear". The logic is, that we move this article to "Landing gear" and alter the lead accordingly. Any objections? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:56, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose - this is a case where the technical term should be used. For both aircraft and spacecraft, the technical term is "undercarriage"; this is the same as Empennage instead of "tail fins" and Fuselage instead of "body".
Is "undercarriage" really more correct than "landing gear"? Merriam-Webster online[1] defines undercarriage as the landing gear of an airplane while the Oxford online[2] defines landing gear as the undercarriage of an aircraft. Can you reference your assertion - for aircraft and/or for spacecraft? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:42, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Steelpillow. It is not clear that "undercarriage" is the "correct technical" term, especially not for the broader scope of this article which includes fixed-wing aircraft (where is may be arguable) but also helicopters, tailsitters, seaplanes, spacecraft landing vehicles and, recently, some launch vehicles. Do you have a source to support what you are saying? N2e (talk) 20:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Landing Gear is far more the common name and they are not actually the same, skids for example are landing gear but not undercarriage. In civil aircraft documentation they are decribed under
    ATA Section 32 "Landing Gear" so the term is used by civil companies like Boeing. If agreed we would have to look at the category system at some time. MilborneOne (talk) 10:24, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Support - 'Landing gear' seems to be the more common term. This is also more specific as undercarriage is used with autos and ground vehicles. -Fnlayson (talk) 15:05, 31 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Landing Gear is the much more common English name, and it would be applicable to the entire scope of the article: aircraft and (the limited subset of) spacecraft which have landing gear. N2e (talk) 11:52, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I found a couple of Aircraft related refs, unhelpfully supporting opposite PoVs:
North, J. "Aircraft undercarriages", Flight, 11 December 1919, Page 1596:[3]

The undercarriage is described in the [Royal Aeronautical?] Society's Glossary as "That part of the aircraft beneath the body intended for its support on land or water and to absorb shock on alighting."

It is my intention to confine my remarks in this paper to undercarriages designed to support aircraft on land, that is to say, colloquially, "landing gears."

Seaplane Pilots Association website FAQ:[4]

Q: How can I determine which floats are approved on my airplane?

A: First look at the Type Certificate Data Sheet (TCDS) for your airplane. That document will specify the approved landing gear for the airplane. Switching between landing gear specified in the TCDS required a logbook entry, but not a Form 337.

If the floats you want to install are not listed in the TCDS....

— Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support More satisfactory inclusive term. I can't imagine using 'undercarriage' to talk of an aircraft's floats or a helicopter's skids.TheLongTone (talk) 23:39, 1 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where are we on this discussion?

It's been three weeks, and we seem to have an emerging consensus, perhaps with one question remaining on whether we have any sources that show "undercarriage" is the definitive technical term, as one commenter asserted. Are we getting close to ready to close? How much longer do folks want to wait to allow more input? Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This was never a formal proposal, just my own informal request for objections to the idea. There seems no clear consensus. Several comments suggest that "landing gear" is the more common term. This is not borne out by Google, which records over 20% more hits for "undercarriage". The term "undercarriage" is also used for other types of vehicle: it seems to me that this makes it the more general term in greater need of an article. Also, I just came across Wragg, D.; Historical dictionary of aviation, The History Press, 2008, where we find that (in an aviation context) undercarriage is: 'sometimes referred to as "landing gear"' and that 'strictly the term refers to any form of aircraft landing gear, including skids, skis, floats and wheels....' So all in all, I see no convincing mandate for change. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 21:21, 16 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comment Steelpillow. I see that perspective you articulate. Although it might seem that Landing gear is more inclusive of the overall scope of the diverse types of landing gear represented in the article as it exists today; Undercarriage is quite likely to win any google search research as large fixed-wing aircraft rather vastly outnumber the other sorts of aricraft and spacecraft covered by this article, so it seems we might expect to see the term undercarriage win the search results presence question. But as this is Wikipedia, consensus will rule the day on article naming; and I can live with that, even if it doesn't seem to make as much sense to me logically. N2e (talk) 13:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ground vehicles and undercarriage

Finally, I thought to raise my head beyond the narrow field of flight. There is wide usage of the term "undercarriage" in the context of wheeled ground vehicles. For example googling automobile undercarriage gets about one and a half million hits while locomotive undercarriage gets over four and a half million. For me, this makes it absolutely a no-brainer. There is no way that we flight buffs can keep this page name to ourselves. Unless anybody can raise a truly unanswerable objection, I intend to make the move as fast as possible, to make way for a disambig page. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I support that move. Definitely more common in the other two forms of transportation. N2e (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


Multiple pages move request (2014)

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was:

{{requested move/dated|multiple=yes |current1=Undercarriage|new1=Landing gear|current2=Conventional landing gear|new2=Tailwheel landing gear|current3=Tricycle gear|new3=Tricycle landing gear|}}

– The current content covers mainly aircraft (and a bit on spacecraft), but the term "undercarriage" is more widely used for wheeled vehicles such as road vehicles and railway locomotives. The term "Landing gear" is exclusive to aircraft and spacecraft and in this context is broadly equivalent to "undercarriage", and better matches the article content. The two sub-pages need to be brought into line and given their commonly recognizable and unambiguous names per

WP:COMMONNAME ("conventional" is obsolete, "tricycle gear" is non-specific and ambiguous). — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 12:10, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
]

AFAIK the term "undercarriage" is not used for road vehicles (which may have a chassis, floorpan, subframe, running gear, suspension, or wheels depending on what is meant) or railway locomotives (main frames, underframe, bogies, wheelsets). --Redrose64 (talk) 18:48, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
FYI some Google search results (quotes not searched on unless stated): "locomotive undercarriage" 4,500,000; "automobile undercarriage" 1,510,000, "truck undercarriage" 3,000,000. Compare this with say ""Running gear"" (with 1 set quotes) 1,210,000 or "underframe" 1,120,000. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the move on nos. 1 and 3. I'm agnostic on no. 2; (but given the lack of early support, you might want to pull that one and let it be discussed, later on, on that specific article page a month or so after we gain consensus, or not, on the others). Much more common use to say "landing gear" for aircraft, and for spacecraft, which is explicitly inside the article scope, the term landing gear is the only term that is used. Cheers. N2e (talk) 04:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support first (undercarriage) and third (trike) per nom, many things called "undercarriage", such ad train bogies. As for the second (conventional), I suggest taildragger configuration instead. -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 07:06, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -
    taildragger already redirects to conventional landing gear. My main objection to "Taildragger configuration" that that it is vernacular slang and is only used in a few places in the world, mostly the US and Canada. It is unheard of throughout much of the rest of the world, making it rather North American-centric. - Ahunt (talk) 11:44, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Strong support all three. Red Slash 03:21, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this move, but without redirecting
    Tailwheel landing gear as it is the most accurate description and will minimize any confusion. Tricycle gear should be Tricycle landing gear to minimize any confusion. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 22:04, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Comment no one can create a dab page if the move is not done — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.175.135 (talk) 23:42, 16 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Query If we follow User:WPGA2345's suggestion above, what happens to undercarriage links in the very many articles that have them? Probably a naive question.TSRL (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • About 1100 pages link to Undercarriage, so these would need to be fixed. But if we assume these are all actually referring to aircraft landing gear, that could be done through an automated tool. Of course, if they are not referring to aircraft landing gear, then they are already wrong and need to be fixed anyway, so there is no loss. Consider this - if you google "undercarriage" and search for images, almost all the images (excluding the ones in this Wikipedia article) are of the bottoms of cars and bulldozers. The article for that part of the car, by the way, is chassis, and for the bulldozer or other tracked equipment is continuous track, but these can both be found in sources being referred to as the "undercarriage." - WPGA2345 - ☛ 09:17, 18 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support 1 & 3 (with redirects)TSRL (talk) 20:41, 17 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review
. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Undercarriage"

The usage of

talk:undercarriage (disambiguation) -- 70.50.148.122 (talk) 03:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)[reply
]

ENGVAR?

All looks a bit messy to me. Why is there a DAB link in the lead, one choice is this article, would be neater with a hatnote. We seem to have missed a fairly fundamental point that landing gear is the US equivalent term for undercarriage (or undercarriage is the Commonwealth term for landing gear, whichever way you want to look at it).

Should be noted in the lead at the very least.Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 00:44, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Undercarriage is the term for a very large number of things, in the Commonwealth, not just that of an aeroplane. That is why "undercarriage" is inapproprriate. -- 70.50.148.248 (talk) 09:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Monowheel

The picture of the Schleicher ASK 21 glider clearly shows two wheels. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eur (talk • contribs) 21:21, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed - Ahunt (talk) 22:10, 12 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Tracked landing gear

Should the "Other types of landing gear" section include details on tracked-landing gear, since that Peacemaker-photo is there?184.186.4.209 (talk) 20:45, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If refs can be found, then yes. - Ahunt (talk) 12:10, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well besides the Peacemaker, the only other aircraft with tracked landing-gear I've been able to find is the
B-17 Flying Fortress (the B-17G variant), Dornier Do 27 and Lisunov Li-2, plus some models I haven't been able to identify. My best guess for the purpose of tracked landing-gear is to land on non-pavement since treads are useful on rugged terrain, though the Peacemaker's was also meant to reduce the plane's weight. All known aircraft with tracked landing gear seem to be from the 1940s and 50s.184.186.4.209 (talk) 18:05, 18 August 2018 (UTC)[reply
]
I suspect they are all used to reduce ground loading for soft surfaces. Needs refs, though. - Ahunt (talk) 19:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
They were mostly to reduce ground loading because it exceeded what was possible for rubber tyres. No-one was trying to land a B-36 on a grass field.
What did for them was developing multi-wheel bogie undercarriages. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:24, 19 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Tailwheel tricycle combination

Has there ever been an aircraft fitted with both a nose-wheel and a tailwheel simultaneously?184.186.4.209 (talk) 02:35, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Concorde, with the tail bumper lowered
Concorde - and probably others - has a tricycle undercarriage, but there's a separate small tail bumper wheel. It works as a tricycle, but because it's a delta wing (which aren't optimal at low speeds) the landing attitude is very nose high, enough to cause tail grounding. This isn't deliberate, but is commonplace.
U-2 takeoff
B-52 landing
There are also bicycle undercarriages, such as the U-2 and B-52, where the wheels are placed in two groups on the centreline, with only small balancing outriggers at the sides. The difficulty here (as would be the case with the combination you describe) is that the landing attitude must now be within quite a narrow range of angle. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:04, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
While it was not used for takeoff or landing, the
Ilyushin IL-62 had a tail strut to hold the tail up during loading and unloading, and it was equipped with wheels to allow the aircraft to be taxied or towed with the strut lowered. The underlying reason for this feature was that the IL-62 is (as far as I know) unique among large jetliners in having no power assist for the flight controls. The control surfaces are aerodynamically counterbalanced in flight, but the main gear had to be located very close to the aircraft CofG to keep elevator forces reasonable on takeoff rotation. This created a serious risk that the aircraft would tip onto its tail at the gate if the cabin were loaded starting at the rear or unloaded starting at the front. The solution was the strut. I've actually been debating for a while whether this warrants inclusion in the article. Carguychris (talk) 20:14, 30 May 2019 (UTC)[reply
]
Ilyushin IL-62
with the tail strut lowered

Is it really retractable?

wheel spat
on its right wheel, absent on its left. Does not look retractable

From Landing gear#Retractable gear Is this really retractable? It does not look like it is. 14:59, 25 May 2020 (UTC) Peter Horn User talk 15:30, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, the Ju-87 is a fixed gear aircraft. I am not sure why that image was there, as the text gives no context, so I have removed it. - Ahunt (talk) 15:14, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong link for Philae

The link to Philae in this article leads to a city in Egypt, not the spacecraft. I tried to correct but couldn't. Please correct it. 117.195.59.221 (talk) 12:14, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for mentioning that!  Fixed - Ahunt (talk) 13:20, 8 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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