Definition
A landing gear arrangement that remains permanently extended in the airstream throughout flight. It cannot be retracted into the airframe and has no mechanism for stowing the wheels and struts after takeoff.
Plain English
Landing gear that stays down all the time. The wheels don't fold up into the aircraft after takeoff — they remain out in the open during the entire flight.
Context Anchor
Seen in aircraft descriptions, performance discussions, preflight planning, and training aircraft checklists.
Derivation
“Fixed” comes from the idea of something fastened or set in place. “Landing gear” means the equipment an aircraft uses to support itself on the ground, such as wheels and struts. Together, the phrase means ground-support equipment that stays in place instead of retracting.
Why Pilots Care
Fixed gear airplanes are mechanically simpler and less expensive to maintain, though the exposed gear creates extra drag that lowers cruise speed compared with retractable-gear designs.
Intuition Check
“Fixed” does not mean the landing gear has been repaired. Here it means the landing gear stays extended and does not retract in normal flight.
Example Sentence 1
The Cessna 172 has fixed landing gear, so the student pilot didn't need to learn a gear-retraction procedure.
Example Sentence 2
Because it has fixed landing gear, the airplane cannot reach the higher cruise speeds possible with retractable designs.