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Firstly,
imagine your own recent air travel. It's so easy. You can stand upright and sit
comfortably, so much that we hardly realize that this was not the case many
years ago. The problem with conventional landing gear is the aircraft is not
level. This pose many problems like standing on the aircraft would be like
standing on an uphill road and sitting on the seat will make you feel that you
are always inclined upward. This can be very uncomfortable to many.
Secondly,
imagine if you are sitting in an aircraft at a lower level than the windshield.
Think how uncomfortable it would be, and even more so the visibility would be
very bad. Now imagine pilots flying these aircrafts with compromised visibility
and that too in those days where visual flight was the only way of flying.
Thirdly,
in most cases the landing gears in conventional landing gears are not
retractable. So the landing gears did add up to the overall drag of the
aircraft. Due to the additional drag the full fuel economy potential was never
realised. In a way we could say that the conventional landing gear not only
added drag but also made the aircraft less fuel efficient.
Fourthly,
the problem of nose over. The conventional landing gear have a peculiar problem
of nose over if brake is applied injudiciously. This is because the aircraft
has nothing to support at the nose end, if the centre of gravity moves to the
front. This is rather a serious problem and the pilot has to judge properly as
to how much brake he should apply to avoid nose over.
Fifthly,
the attitude of the aircraft is such that the wings are always at higher angle
of attack. This makes it very difficult to taxi the aircraft during strong
windy conditions. Also landing during crosswind becomes very difficult for the
aircraft.
Sixthly,
there is the problem of ground looping. Then there is the problem of P-factor.
So we can see conventional landing gears have many problems. It is because of these problems that conventional landing gears have become obsolete.
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