High vs. low wing
[SLF, again, because idiot questions are tolerated]
During the almost endless debate and reportage about the 737 MAX I came across a claim that the reason there was limited space under the wing was because the fuselage needed to be low to the ground to allow easy loading of cargo. This struck me as rubbish: undercarriage is *heavy* and no sensible engineer would make it any longer than needed, and in the era of skinny turbojets that initial clearance was plenty.
But I have got to thinking - if high-wing allows a much shorter (i.e. lighter) undercarriage why the predominance of low-wing types?
Plus: surely high-wing is inherently more stable? In hand-wavey terms, the aircraft is hanging off the wings rather than balancing on top of them. I note that civilian trainers (e.g. Cessna 152) are high-wing whilst military types tend to be low.
A brief search indicates that low-wing is more survivable in case of "uncommanded landing", but there must be more to it than that.