Some Fatigue Problems Encountered in the Design of an Aircraft Landing Gear: An account of the methods used to ensure adequate fatigue life in undercarriage design

UNTIL about ten years ago the basis for the design of aircraft landing gear was an arbitrary set of static strength requirements as specified in the British Civil Airworthiness Requirements or Av.P.970, which experience had shown provided an acceptable standard of safety. The number of landings achieved by most military aircraft, however, seldom exceeded one or two thousand and the fatigue performance was, therefore, generally acceptable.