Landing Gear Design Requirements for Bomb-Damaged Runway Operations

There exists a need to closely examine scenarios involving bomb damage of runways: (1) What kind of damage can be expected? (2) What kind of rapid repair can be achieved? (3) What aircraft capability can be provided? Not all of these questions may be answerable to the degree needed to determine valid aircraft and landing gear system design requirements. However, current landing gear technology has demonstrated that a certain degree of rough field capability is available without penalizing aircraft flight performance. For future aircraft to take advantage of these capabilities, aircraft and landing gear specifications must require the ability to traverse severe bumps.