Keeping your aircraft landing gear well-maintained is important for keeping your plane in good shape and keeping passengers safe. Your landing gear is arguably one of the most important aircraft components, as it absorbs impact, provides a suspension system, and facilitates braking and steering of the aircraft while on the ground.
The landing gear takes a beating every time it is used due to the force of it hitting runways consistently. This causes a lot of stress, which is why it is so important to stay on top of maintenance.
In this article, we’re going to dive into landing gear maintenance and the overhaul process when you send your landing gear into AAI.
What is an Aircraft Landing Gear?
The landing gear is on the undercarriage of an aircraft and used for takeoff, landing, and taxiing. On a small aircraft, the landing gear has three wheels: two main wheels and a third wheel located on either the front or rear of the plane.
The most common type of landing gear is a tricycle landing gear, which has several advantages and is located under the fuselage and nose of an aircraft. A landing gear is arguably one of the most important aircraft components, as it absorbs impact, provides a suspension system, and facilitates braking and steering of the aircraft while on the ground.
What Does Landing Gear Overhaul/Restoration Include?
Whether you are flying a single engine aircraft or corporate jet, your landing gear must be properly inspected and maintained to ensure proper and safe operation. Because landing gear is exposed to all types of environmental conditions, corrosion, wear and tear is all too common. Sending your landing gear to a repair station that offers specialized repairs is important for saving time and money.
AAI can help with overhaul, repair, exchange, troubleshooting, testing, and restoration. Here’s a breakdown of how we overhaul your landing gear:
- When AAI receives your landing gear, a work ordered is generated to maintain traceability throughout the overhaul process and checked to make sure every component is accounted for.
- The landing gear moves to the technicians. Every component is inspected to make sure there are no missing or additional parts.
- The landing gear is fully disassembled to see what is going on and ensure there aren’t any hidden issues that can’t be seen just by looking at it.
- The landing gear is stripped down. Primary coating, primer, cadmium plating, etc. to the bare metal as required to check for any hidden issues.
- Visual and dimensional inspection is completed to see what parts need to be replaced or reconditioned.
- Non-destructive testing is done to check for hidden issues that can’t been seen with naked eye
- Cadmium plating, anodizing and other metal treatments are added to the part as a base layer of protection.
- Required repairs such as re-chroming, oversize hole repairs and bushing replacement are completed.
- Paint is applied to the part for an added layer of protection
- The landing gear is fully reassembled back to operational condition.
- After the landing gear is reassembled, extensive testing is done to make sure the landing gear is up to the best possible standard.
- Final quality inspections are completed, and airworthiness certifications are issued.
- You get your gear back and your plane back in the air!
How Much Do Landing Gear Services Cost?
Landing gear overhaul pricing varies depending on the shop. You could ask five different repair stations what “standard overhaul” means and get five different answers. When you work with AAI, we try to be as transparent as possible and educate customers on what to expect as far as pricing. We’ll quote a standard rate (outlined below) and give the average cost of what we typically see based on numerous landing gear jobs completed over the years.
Some shops will quote “flat rate” or “not to exceed” cost, but we believe that model is unfair when applied to complex landing gear overhaul jobs. With flat rate, the customer often ends up paying thousands of dollars more because they are paying for parts that may or may not be required. In the standard rate model, they are only paying additional fees for the exact parts that require replacement or additional repair.
Here is what standard rate overhaul means to us:
Standard rate:
- For landing gear, we quote standard rate inspection that includes all the necessary labor and parts to disassemble, clean, inspect, reassemble, and test.
- Once the landing gear is inspected, there may be items that are considered “above and beyond” standard overhaul.
Items that may be considered “above and beyond” standard overhaul:
- Corroded parts such as piston tubes and trunnions
- Bent, broken, or missing parts
- Parts that require replacement due to airworthiness directives or service bulletins
We give the customers price-saving options of being able to choose between DER repairs, PMA or OEM parts.
AAI Provides FAA Certified Repairs and Inspections on Beechcraft, King Air, Cessna, Piper, Citation and Bombardier Challenger Landing Gear
When you can’t find the parts you need, the problems multiply. You send in your plane for routine maintenance and expect to have it back in a week. But inspections turn up several parts that need to be replaced, which could take weeks or even months. What now?
The entire process of locating, ordering, and receiving certified aircraft accessories is a huge headache.
Uncertified, untested parts are all over the internet, but do you really want to risk your safety for convenience? Certified replacement parts can take a ridiculously long time to ship – sometimes months – and the cost can be absurdly high.
Unless you shop with AAI.
We’ll help you avoid the delays and headaches, and instead get certified, safe, and tested aircraft accessories so that you can fix your aircraft and get back to flying.
1. Call AAI
2. Get a quote
3. Fix your plane and fly