Abstract The landing gear is an important part of an airplane, for although failure may not be as dangerous to life as failure of another part, it is bound to be costly. Five things to look for in a landing gear are strength, satisfactory shock absorption, low drag, light weight, and stable taxying characteristics, and these are not necessarily antagonistic one to another nor difficult of attainment. Landing-gear failures are seemingly more frequent than other failures in spite of high load factors, possibly because taxying loads are neglected in specifying design loads. Small planes are often not able to make use of a retractable chassis, and the one-wheel chassis and tandem-wheel truck are suggested as possible methods of reducing chassis drag. Mention is made of the evolution of the Monocoupe landing gear toward decreased weight and resistance and greater dependability.