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Old 13th Jul 2005, 02:34
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Flight Detent
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Brisbane, Australia
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Airbus A380 Undercarriage System

With such a huge airplane, I'm very surprised to learn that the A380 doesn't have any way of steering the aft body gear, apparently it's fixed straight ahead!

With a very similar geometric layout to the B747 whose the body gear steering works very well and enables the airplane to maneuver into/around some smallish places, not to mention the very small lineup allowance it has, taking into account the size of it!

The horrendous side loading stress of the A380 main struts/mounts/wheels during any ground maneuvering will surely cause structural problems, not to mention the tearing up of the runway/taxiway surface, followed by the injestion of that loose material into the low slung engines of B737 and B757 types!

Tyre sidewall deterioration is always a problem with airplane tyres, but with some of the regular deformation required to turn this very heavy airplane in service, I can see some big problems with reliability of A380 wheels, and at high speed, we all know what that can do!!

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