Gazzas Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 Hi, I've only been touching-close to two kinds of aircraft: Cessnas and Phantom RF4B. I'd swear that the white-painted gear legsof the RF4B were steel... not any kind of lightweight material. BUt that was just my impressions as a young Marine. How about those of you guys who have been touching-close to our favorite planes: Messerscmitt, Spitfire, P-51, Zero, Yak... All of those WWII birds. What was their LG made of? Lightweight stuff, or steel? Gaz D.B. Andrus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phasephantomphixer Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 Modern Jets such as that Phantom are a Titanium Alloy and High strength steel alloy. Not sure of percentages, but believe they keep checks on carbon amounts. Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alaninaustria Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 Most are an alloy with titanium and steel with nickel steel for bearings and oleos. Modern military aircraft now have a silicon based molecule injected into the alloy to allow for energy absorbtion without compromising weight. Vintage aircraft from WWII used mostly a steel alloy. The landing gear of most military and civilian aircraft are the heaviest individual parts of the total aircraft - right up there with the powerplants. The structures themselves are x-rayed, and magnafluxed on a scheduled basis to detect metal fatigue, corrosion and structural failure. Many main landing gear structures can also be borroscoped to view the inner cavities to check for cracking, corrosion and fatigue. Pretty interesting part of an aircaft actually - and lots of associated plumbing for hydraulic lines, electrical connections for micro-switches and lasers that are used to confirm gear positon. Some modern aerobatic fixed gear aircraft use composites for the gear structures. Cheers Alan Gazzas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juggernut Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 Having rebuilt only Learjet 35 struts, I can say the upper portion of these struts are an aluminum/magnesium alloy of some kind. The oleo portion, the tee and the axles are steel. All the interior guts are made up of a lot of different materials. Oleo scissors are aluminum alloy with bronze bushings and chrome plated hinge pins and AN/MS (NASM) hardware holding it all to the strut. As for any other types of struts, I haven't a clue. alaninaustria 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardcore Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 There is a book about German landing gears of aircraft in ww2. Something of a niche interest for sure Rick Griewski and Gazzas 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karimb Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 For us they are titanium and alu on the A350. Super impressive. In my humble opinion the most attractive part of an airplane engineeringwise is the landing gear. I always love taking a look at all the moving parts and imagining the retraction extension sequence! K Rick Griewski 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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