Patent ID: 7918417

Claim:
An undercarriage for a rotary wing aircraft having a carriage with a force take-up structure, the undercarriage comprising: two landing skids extending in a longitudinal direction below the carriage and spaced apart laterally from a midplane of the carriage, each skid adapted to absorb a fraction of energy that is applied thereto during a landing under normal conditions by deforming elastically; a pair of transverse elements connecting the two landing skids and disposed in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the undercarriage and adapted to absorb energy that is applied thereto during a landing under normal conditions by deforming elastically, the pair of transverse elements including a front transverse element and a rear transverse element spaced apart from each other in the longitudinal direction; a connection system connecting the undercarriage to the force take-up structure of the aircraft and absorbing energy that is applied thereto during a crash by deforming plastically in a controlled manner, the connection system including a pair of front buckling struts and a pair of rear buckling struts, each strut of the pair of front buckling struts, and the pair of rear buckling struts being plastically deformable in a crash, each of the buckling struts being coupled to each of the transverse members with a bottom hinge; and assembly means providing statically-redundant coupling between the force take-up structure of the aircraft and the pair of transverse elements, the assembly means located along the pair of transverse elements between each of the front pair of buckling struts and between each of the rear pair of buckling struts, the assembly means having at least one statically-redundant fastener member, wherein each of the of transverse elements includes an endpiece section that extends transversely on either side of the undercarriage an offset distance outwards transversely and downwards from the bottom hinge of the pair of buckling struts.