Originally Posted by
Volume
Compared to the design of some aircraft carrier operated military aircraft or some folding wing motorgliders I do not think so.
There are for example 4 individually actuated latch pins, there is a locking mechanism and there is a folding actuator meaning 6 actuators where most landing gears have only two...
And the folding axis is not perpendicular to the wing centerline, making the structure around it extremely complex. (The alternative would have been more air loads during taxi).
I'm not certain, but I believe you are describing the optional 777 wing fold mechanism. The 777X mechanism is much simpler. The 777 wing folded 21 ft of wing. The 777X only folds 10 feet of wing, with essentially only the raked wing tip getting folded. Each folding wingtip has a single rotary fold actuator and four latch pins with integral actuators.
As for the number of actuators in a landing gear system, in order to sequence the doors properly, many systems require a separate actuator for each door and each leg often has multiple doors.
It puts the A/C packs in the fairings, the recirc filters, mixers, fans etc. are all between the cargo bay and the center wing box reducing the available cargo volume.
Those components are indeed behind the center wing box in the belly.. However, the landing gear retract into the area further behind the center wing box. That area is not available for cargo loading anyway.