The Protocol Programme: Advanced Ground operations through Landing Gear Enhancements and The Corrosion Resistant Steel Project (AGILE-CREST)

This project will apply new high strength stainless steel materials to the challenging Landing Gear environment with the key objective to minimise corrosion related maintenance and enable greatly extended Time between overhaul (TBO).
Landing Gear is today a significant contributor to the operational cost of the management of an Aircraft fleet. Corrosion contributes to operational interrupts leading to delays and cancellations of Aircraft. Airlines have confirmed that overhaul cost, largely driven by corrosion, is one of the major contributors to the maintenance cost of Landing Gear. Corrosion has been identified as the key factor limiting TBO to 10 years on current aircraft programs and also around one third of the overhaul repair bill. Studies have shown that increasing the TBO from 10 to 14 years would reduce Landing Gear cost of ownership by around 10$/FH per aircraft.
The project is collaboration with Messier-Dowty Ltd for landing gear design material requirements, Carpenter Technology Corp for corrosion resistant steels and the AMRC in Sheffield for advanced manufacturing and test capability. Airbus will be responsible for performance Requirements, Integration, Certification and test requirements aspects of the Technology.