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Old 30th March 2005 | 09:26
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Genghis the Engineer
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Pretty much all light aircraft undercarriages are designed and built to the same structural requirements, and thus all are equally unlikely to fail.

How to break an undercarriage?

(1) Flare much too early, and stall in. Some professional knowledge added to a quick back of envelope sum tells me that to break a Cessna undercarriage you'd need a closure rate with the ground of at-least 10 ft/sec and probably nearer 14 ft/sec. That equates to a straight drop, with no lift acting at-all (which wouldn't be the case) .

(2) Land on a totally inappropriate surface, for example drift off the runway centreline and stick a mainwheel down a large rabbit hole. This does happen, but is not the undercarriage's fault.


A groundloop occurs when the pilot loses directional control of the aeroplane on the ground - this is almost impossible to achieve in a nosewheel aircraft and is largely a taildragger problem. When it does occur, a properly designed undercarriage should take it without any problems.

So, handle the aircraft as intended, and put it down on a runway surface each time, you can probably go your entire life without seeing an undercarriage failure.

G
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