The Shift Toward Electric Landing Gear in Modern Aviation

The aviation industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by the need to reduce carbon emissions, lower operating costs, and improve system reliability. While much of the public discussion around aircraft electrification focuses on propulsion, a quieter but equally important revolution is taking place in secondary systems — particularly landing gear. Electric landing gear systems, which replace traditional hydraulic or pneumatic actuators with electric motors and electromechanical actuators, are emerging as a cornerstone of next-generation aircraft design. These systems promise not only to reduce environmental impact but to enable new aircraft configurations, simplify maintenance, and improve operational efficiency from gate to gate.

Landing gear has historically been one of the heaviest and most maintenance-intensive subsystems on an aircraft. Hydraulic systems, while powerful, require complex networks of pumps, valves, seals, and fluid reservoirs. They are prone to leaks, require regular fluid changes, and add significant weight through piping and fluid itself. Electric landing gear systems eliminate many of these drawbacks by replacing hydraulic power with electrical power distributed through wires. This aligns with the broader industry trend toward the "More Electric Aircraft" (MEA) concept, where pneumatic and hydraulic systems are progressively replaced by electrical alternatives. As aircraft manufacturers push toward hybrid-electric and fully electric propulsion, electric landing gear becomes not just an option but a necessity for a fully integrated electric power architecture.

How Electric Landing Gear Systems Work

At their core, electric landing gear systems use electromechanical actuators (EMAs) to control the extension, retraction, steering, and braking of the landing gear. An EMA typically consists of an electric motor, a gear reduction unit, and a mechanical linkage or screw mechanism that converts rotational motion into linear force. Power is supplied from the aircraft's electrical distribution system, and control is managed by dedicated electronic control units that communicate with the aircraft's flight control computers.

The operation of an electric landing gear system follows a sequence. When the pilot selects "gear up," the control unit sends a command to the EMA, which drives the gear into its stowed position. Sensors monitor position, speed, and load throughout the movement, providing real-time feedback to ensure smooth and precise operation. During landing, the reverse sequence occurs, with the EMA extending the gear at a controlled rate. Unlike hydraulic systems that use pressurized fluid to provide damping, electric systems can use regenerative braking—where the motor acts as a generator—to absorb energy and feed it back into the aircraft's electrical grid. This captured energy can be used to power other systems or recharge batteries, contributing to overall energy efficiency.

Key components of an electric landing gear system include:

  • Electric motors: Typically brushless DC motors or permanent magnet synchronous motors, chosen for their high torque density and reliability.
  • Electromechanical actuators: The primary motion-producing devices, often incorporating ball screws or roller screws for high efficiency and load capacity.
  • Power electronics: Inverters, converters, and motor controllers that regulate current, voltage, and frequency to achieve precise motion control.
  • Control units: Embedded computers running control algorithms for position, speed, and torque management.
  • Sensors: Position encoders, load cells, temperature sensors, and health monitoring devices that feed data to the control system.
  • Energy storage: In some designs, supercapacitors or batteries to handle peak power demands during gear retraction.

This architecture contrasts sharply with hydraulic systems, which rely on a central pump, accumulators, valves, and tubing routed throughout the airframe. The electrical approach reduces the number of moving parts, eliminates fluid-related maintenance, and enables simpler integration with digital control systems.

Key Benefits Over Traditional Hydraulic Systems

Environmental Benefits

Hydraulic fluids used in aviation — typically phosphate ester-based — are toxic, corrosive, and difficult to dispose of. Spills during maintenance or flight require hazardous material handling and can contaminate soil and water. Electric landing gear systems completely eliminate hydraulic fluids from the landing gear subsystem. This not only reduces the environmental footprint of aircraft operations and maintenance but also simplifies decommissioning and recycling at the end of an aircraft's life. For airlines operating in environmentally sensitive regions or under strict emissions and waste regulations, this is a compelling advantage.

Weight Reduction

While electric actuators themselves are not always lighter than hydraulic cylinders, the overall system weight typically decreases because the supporting infrastructure is much simpler. A hydraulic system requires pumps, accumulators, manifolds, tubing, filters, and fluid — all of which add weight distributed throughout the aircraft. Electric systems replace these with wiring and power electronics, which are generally lighter and can be routed more efficiently. Additionally, because electric systems do not require a continuously running pump, they reduce parasitic loads on the engines, leading to lower fuel burn. Studies on more electric aircraft concepts have shown overall system weight savings of 10–20% for landing gear systems, depending on the specific architecture and actuator design.

Reliability and Maintenance

Hydraulic systems are notorious for leaks, seal wear, and fluid contamination. A single contaminated fluid batch can cascade into failures across multiple components. Electric landing gear systems have fewer parts, no seals that degrade over time, and no fluid to monitor or replace. Actuators can be designed with built-in redundancy — dual windings, dual motors, or mechanical backup paths — to ensure continued operation after a single failure. Furthermore, the availability of continuous sensor data enables condition-based maintenance, where components are serviced based on actual wear rather than fixed intervals. This reduces unscheduled downtime, lowers maintenance labor hours, and improves aircraft dispatch reliability.

Energy Efficiency

One of the most significant advantages of electric landing gear is the ability to recover energy during retraction and landing. As the landing gear is raised, the weight of the gear naturally wants to fall back down; an electric motor can work against this motion to generate electricity. Similarly, during braking, electric actuators can operate in regenerative mode, converting kinetic energy into electrical energy. While the total energy recovered is modest compared to propulsion demands, it contributes to overall system efficiency and supports the aircraft's electrical load without drawing additional power from the engines. In hybrid-electric and fully electric aircraft, every kilowatt-hour matters, making this regenerative capability far more valuable than in conventional designs.

Operational Flexibility

Electric systems allow for more flexible control strategies. For example, damping characteristics can be varied electronically to adapt to different landing conditions — soft for a smooth runway, firmer for a short-field landing — without mechanical adjustments. Steering can be more precise and can be integrated with taxiing automation. The same electric motors used for gear retraction can also be used for electric taxi (e-taxi) systems, where the landing gear motors drive the wheels on the ground, eliminating the need to run the main engines during taxi. This can save significant fuel on short-haul flights, where taxi time can account for a substantial portion of total fuel burn.

Challenges and Engineering Hurdles

Despite their promise, electric landing gear systems face several technical challenges that must be resolved before they become standard on large commercial aircraft.

Power Supply and Peak Demands

Retracting landing gear requires high power for a short duration — typically several kilowatts to tens of kilowatts depending on aircraft size. In a hydraulic system, this power is drawn from a continuously running pump that stores energy in accumulators. In an electric system, the peak power must come from the aircraft's electrical generators, batteries, or supercapacitors. Managing this peak demand without overloading the electrical grid or adding excessive battery weight is a primary design challenge. Advanced power management algorithms and hybrid energy storage solutions are being developed to smooth out these peaks.

Thermal Management

Electric motors and power electronics generate heat during operation, especially during high-load events like gear retraction. Unlike hydraulic systems, which carry heat away in the fluid, electric components must rely on conduction, convection, and sometimes active cooling. Adding cooling ducts, heat sinks, or liquid cooling loops adds weight and complexity. Engineers are working on high-temperature actuators and electronics that can tolerate hotter operation, as well as passive thermal management strategies that integrate heat dissipation into the airframe structure.

Safety and Redundancy

Landing gear is a safety-critical system — if it fails to deploy, the aircraft cannot land safely. Certification authorities such as EASA and FAA demand extremely high reliability, typically requiring that no single failure prevent gear extension. In electric systems, redundancy must be built into the electrical path: dual motor windings, independent control channels, separate power feeds, and mechanical backup systems (e.g., free-fall extension mechanisms). Ensuring that these redundant paths do not introduce single points of failure requires rigorous design and testing. The certification process for a primary flight-critical electric system is arduous and has slowed adoption for large commercial jets.

Weight and Power Density

While electric actuators can be lighter than hydraulic cylinders on a system level, they currently have lower power-to-weight ratios than hydraulic equivalents at very high forces. For landing gear on large wide-body aircraft, the forces involved are enormous — several hundred kilonewtons. Designing an electromechanical actuator that can produce these forces while remaining compact and lightweight stretches the limits of current motor and gear technology. Advances in magnetic materials, such as high-energy rare-earth magnets, and in gear train design (e.g., planetary roller screws) are gradually closing this gap.

Cost and Supply Chain Maturity

Electromechanical actuators and their associated power electronics are currently more expensive than hydraulic components on a per-unit basis. The supply chain for high-reliability aerospace-grade electric actuators is still maturing, with fewer qualified suppliers than for hydraulic systems. As production volumes increase and manufacturing processes improve, costs are expected to come down, but for the near term, electric landing gear systems carry a premium that airlines must justify through lower maintenance costs and fuel savings.

Current Applications and Real-World Examples

Electric and electromechanical landing gear systems are already in service on a range of smaller aircraft and are being tested on larger platforms. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner uses electric actuation for its nose wheel steering and shock absorber damping, although the main gear retraction remains hydraulic. The Airbus A350 similarly uses electric braking and steering but retains hydraulic retraction. These hybrid approaches demonstrate the industry's stepwise transition from hydraulic to electric.

In the business jet and general aviation sectors, several manufacturers have adopted fully electric landing gear. The Dassault Falcon 8X and Gulfstream G700 use electric extension/retraction systems, benefiting from reduced weight and simpler maintenance. The Pipistrel Velis Electro, a fully electric trainer, uses an electric landing gear system consistent with its all-electric design philosophy.

Looking ahead, several major research programs are pushing the boundaries. The European Union's Clean Sky 2 program has funded multiple projects on more electric landing gear, including the development of high-power EMA actuators for regional aircraft. NASA's Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) program includes work on electric actuation systems that can scale to transport-category aircraft. And in the eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) sector, electric landing gear is standard because the entire aircraft is electrically powered, and the weight savings from eliminating hydraulics are critical for range and payload.

For further reading, NASA's Electrified Aviation page provides an overview of research programs. The Clean Aviation Joint Undertaking continues the work of Clean Sky 2 with a focus on climate-neutral aviation by 2050.

Future Innovations and Research Directions

Smart Sensors and Real-Time Health Monitoring

Future electric landing gear systems will be densely instrumented with sensors that measure load, temperature, vibration, and position in real time. By feeding this data into health monitoring algorithms, the system can predict incipient failures before they occur. For example, a gradual increase in motor current over successive flights might indicate bearing wear, triggering a maintenance alert. This shift from fixed-interval maintenance to predictive maintenance reduces unscheduled downtime and improves fleet availability. The data can also be used to optimize control strategies — for instance, adjusting braking force based on detected runway conditions.

Adaptive Control and Active Damping

Electric actuators can respond far more quickly than hydraulic valves. This enables adaptive control algorithms that tailor the landing gear's behavior to each landing. Active damping — where the actuator applies force in opposition to oscillations — can eliminate the bounce and oscillation that sometimes occur after touchdown, improving passenger comfort and reducing stress on the airframe. Similarly, adaptive steering can improve ground handling on icy or wet runways by adjusting individual wheel torque on the fly.

Advanced Materials for Actuators

The next generation of electromechanical actuators will benefit from advances in materials science. High-temperature superconducting motors could dramatically increase power density, allowing smaller actuators for the same force output. Composite structural components — such as carbon-fiber-reinforced actuator housings — reduce weight further. Magnetless motors (such as switched reluctance motors) eliminate the need for rare-earth magnets, reducing both cost and supply chain vulnerability. These materials will push the power-to-weight ratio of electric actuators closer to, and eventually beyond, that of hydraulic systems.

Integration with Electric Taxi Systems

One of the most exciting synergies is between electric landing gear and electric taxi systems, often called e-taxi. By adding drive motors to the landing gear wheels, aircraft can taxi to and from gates without running the main engines. Boeing, Airbus, and several startups have demonstrated e-taxi systems that use the same power electronics and actuators as the landing gear retraction system. For short-haul airlines, where taxi fuel burn can be 4-6% of total fuel consumption, e-taxi offers immediate emissions reductions and noise reduction at airports. Combining e-taxi with electric landing gear creates a unified electric ground movement system that is lighter and more reliable than separate systems.

Implications for Fully Electric and Hydrogen Aircraft

As aircraft move toward zero-emission propulsion — whether through batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, or hydrogen combustion — the entire power architecture must be electric. There will be no hydraulic or pneumatic power sources on board. Electric landing gear becomes a mandatory building block, not just an option. Furthermore, hydrogen aircraft face unique challenges: liquid hydrogen must be stored at cryogenic temperatures, and hydraulic lines running through cryogenic zones would be problematic. Electric wiring is far easier to insulate and route. The landing gear on a hydrogen aircraft will almost certainly be fully electric, driving further investment and innovation in this technology.

Conclusion

The transition from hydraulic to electric landing gear systems represents a significant chapter in the ongoing electrification of aviation. While challenges remain — particularly in power density, thermal management, and certification — the benefits in terms of environmental impact, weight, reliability, and operational flexibility are too compelling to ignore. The industry is already moving in this direction, starting with smaller aircraft and expanding to larger platforms as technology matures.

For airlines, the payoff will come in lower maintenance costs, higher dispatch reliability, and reduced fuel burn. For passengers, the result will be quieter, smoother, and more sustainable flights. And for the planet, every kilowatt-hour saved and every drop of hydraulic fluid eliminated contributes to a cleaner aviation industry. As research programs like those under Clean Aviation and NASA continue to push the boundaries, electric landing gear systems are on track to become a standard feature of next-generation aircraft within the next decade. The future of landing is electric.

For more on electric landing gear and related technologies, the Boeing More Electric Aircraft page offers insights into their approach. The EASA Clean Sky 2 page provides an overview of EU-funded research in this area.