How Many Wheels Does an Airplane Have? (737, 747, A380 & Other Types)

Most passenger airplanes have between 6 and 22 wheels. A Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 has 6, a Boeing 787 or A350-900 has 10, a Boeing 777 has 14, a Boeing 747 has 18, and the Airbus A380 has 22, the most of any airliner. Small piston planes like a Cessna 172 have just 3. The record holder was the Antonov An-225 cargo jet with 32; among aircraft flying today, the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy leads with 28.

The pattern is simple: the heavier the airplane, the more wheels it needs to spread its weight across the runway. Every airliner has a nose gear with 2 wheels. What changes is how many main gear legs sit under the wings and fuselage, and how many wheels each one carries.

 

Airplane wheel count by type

Aircraft	Total wheels	Nose gear	Main gear layout
Cessna 172 (light single)	3	1	2 legs × 1 wheel
Learjet 70/75 (business jet)	5	1	2 legs × 2 wheels
Gulfstream G650 (business jet)	6	2	2 legs × 2 wheels
Bombardier CRJ / Dash 8	6	2	2 legs × 2 wheels
Airbus A220	6	2	2 legs × 2 wheels
Airbus A319 / A320 / A321	6	2	2 legs × 2 wheels
Boeing 717 / 727 / 737 (incl. 737 MAX)	6	2	2 legs × 2 wheels
Boeing 757	10	2	2 bogies × 4 wheels
Boeing 767	10	2	2 bogies × 4 wheels
Boeing 787 Dreamliner	10	2	2 bogies × 4 wheels
Airbus A300 / A310 / A330	10	2	2 bogies × 4 wheels
Airbus A350-900	10	2	2 bogies × 4 wheels
Airbus A340-200/300	12	2	2 bogies × 4 + center leg × 2
Boeing 777	14	2	2 bogies × 6 wheels
Airbus A350-1000	14	2	2 bogies × 6 wheels
Airbus A340-500/600	14	2	3 bogies × 4 wheels
Boeing 747 (all versions)	18	2	4 bogies × 4 wheels
Airbus A380	22	2	2 wing bogies × 4 + 2 body bogies × 6
Antonov An-124	24	4	2 rows × 10 wheels
Lockheed C-5 Galaxy	28	4	4 bogies × 6 wheels
Antonov An-225 Mriya (destroyed 2022)	32	4	2 rows × 14 wheels

 

Standard factory configurations. Airlines can occasionally order non-standard gear: Air India, for example, took some A320s with 4-wheel main bogies, giving them 10 wheels instead of 6.

 

Why do big airplanes need so many wheels?

Because runways can only take so much weight on any one spot. An A380 can weigh 575 tonnes at takeoff. Put that on four car-sized tires and it would crack the concrete and burst the tires. Spread it over 20 main wheels and each one carries a load the pavement and tire can handle.

Four things decide the wheel count:

• Maximum takeoff weight. This is the biggest factor. Jets under roughly 100 tonnes manage with 4 main wheels. Mid-size widebodies use 8. Above about 300 tonnes, designers add 6-wheel bogies or extra gear legs.
• Pavement loading. Airports publish how much load their runways and taxiways can carry. Aircraft makers design the gear so a new jet can use existing airports without rebuilding them. This is why the A380 got 22 wheels instead of fewer, bigger ones.
• Tire limits. Each tire has a maximum load and speed rating. Adding wheels is easier than making one giant tire, which would also need a huge gear bay to fold into.
• Redundancy. With several wheels on each leg, a single blown tire does not end in disaster. The others carry the load until the airplane stops.

More wheels also means more brakes. On airliners the nose wheels only steer; all the braking happens on the main wheels. So a heavier jet with more main wheels gets more brakes to absorb the energy of a landing or a rejected takeoff.

 

Narrow-body jets: 6 wheels (mostly)

How many wheels does a Boeing 737 have?

A Boeing 737 has 6 wheels: 2 on the nose gear and 2 on each of the two main gear legs under the wings. That is true of every generation, from the original 737-100 through the 737 NG (-700, -800, -900) and the 737 MAX. The older 717 and 727 use the same 6-wheel layout.

A quirk worth knowing: the 737 has no main gear doors. When the gear retracts, the outer side of each main wheel stays exposed and sits flush with the belly. Look up at a departing 737 and you can see the tires.

 

How many wheels does an Airbus A320 have?

The A320 family (A318, A319, A320, A321, including the neo versions) also has 6 wheels in the same 2 + 2 + 2 arrangement. The smaller Airbus A220 and regional jets like the Bombardier CRJ and Embraer E-Jets follow the same pattern.

 

The exception: the Boeing 757

The 757 is a narrow-body, but it has 10 wheels. It is heavier and longer than a 737 or A321, so each main leg carries a 4-wheel bogie instead of a single pair.

 

Wide-body jets: 10 to 22 wheels

How many wheels does a Boeing 747 have?

A Boeing 747 has 18 wheels: 2 on the nose gear and 16 on four main gear legs, each with a 4-wheel bogie. Two legs hang under the wings and two sit under the fuselage (the body gear). When the 747 first flew in 1969 it was the first airliner with four main gear legs; the 707 before it had two. Every version, including today’s 747-8, keeps the same 18-wheel layout. Its main tires are about 49 inches (1.2 m) across.

 

How many wheels does an Airbus A380 have?

The Airbus A380 has 22 wheels, more than any other passenger aircraft:

• Nose gear: 2 wheels
• Wing gear: 2 legs × 4 wheels = 8 wheels
• Body gear: 2 legs × 6 wheels = 12 wheels

The 6-wheel body gear bogies steer at the rear axle, which helps the superjumbo turn tightly without scrubbing its tires. Each main tire is about 56 inches (1.4 m) across. The gear is so complex that when Emirates first replaced the entire landing gear on one of its A380s in 2018, the aircraft sat on jacks in the hangar for about two weeks.

 

How many wheels does a Boeing 777 have?

The Boeing 777 has 14 wheels: 2 on the nose and 12 on two main legs. Instead of adding extra legs like the 747, Boeing gave each leg a 6-wheel bogie (three axles). That was unusual for a Western jet when the 777 launched, and it let a twin-engine airplane carry near-747 weights on just two main legs. The rear axle steers to cut tire wear in tight turns. Air Canada keeps its 777-200LR tires at 218 psi, about seven times the pressure of a car tire.

The newer Boeing 777X keeps the same 14-wheel design. Airbus followed a similar logic with the A350-1000, which also has 14 wheels on 6-wheel bogies, while the lighter A350-900 has 10.

 

How many wheels does a Boeing 787 have?

The 787 Dreamliner has 10 wheels: 2 nose wheels plus two 4-wheel main bogies. The Boeing 767, Airbus A330 and A350-900 use the same layout.

 

The odd ones: A340, MD-11 and DC-10

Some tri-jets and four-engine jets added a gear leg on the fuselage centerline. The A340-200/300 has 12 wheels, with a small 2-wheel leg in the middle; the McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 and MD-11 do the same. The longer, heavier A340-500/600 swapped that for a 4-wheel center bogie, for 14 wheels in total.

 

Cargo giants, military jets and small planes

Which airplane has the most wheels?

The Antonov An-225 Mriya had the most wheels of any aircraft ever built: 32. Four were on a twin nose gear, and 28 sat in two long rows of 14 under the fuselage. Several of the rear pairs could steer, letting the six-engine giant make a full turn on a 60 m (200 ft) wide runway. Only one was ever completed, and it was destroyed at Hostomel airport near Kyiv in 2022.

With the An-225 gone, the record among flying aircraft belongs to the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, the US Air Force’s largest transport, with 28 wheels: 4 on the nose gear and 24 on four 6-wheel main bogies. The C-5 can “kneel” to lower its cargo floor for loading, and it can raise each set of wheels on its own so crews can change tires without jacking the whole aircraft. The An-225’s smaller sibling, the Antonov An-124, has 24 wheels.

 

How many wheels do small planes have?

Most light aircraft, such as the Cessna 172 or Piper Cherokee, have 3 wheels: one under the nose and one under each side. Older designs called taildraggers also have 3, but with a small wheel under the tail instead of the nose. Light planes are light enough that one wheel per leg is plenty.

 

How many wheels do private jets have?

Business jets usually have 3 to 6 wheels. A light jet like the Embraer Phenom 100 has 3. A Learjet 70/75 has 5 (one nose wheel, two pairs on the mains). Large cabin jets like the Gulfstream G650 or Dassault Falcon 7X have 6, the same layout as a 737.

 

How many wheels do fighter jets have?

Most fighters, including the F-22 Raptor and F-35, have just 3 wheels. A few, like the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, use a twin nose wheel for 4, which helps with carrier catapult launches. The B-52 bomber is an outlier: its 8 main wheels sit in a line under the fuselage (a “bicycle” layout), with 2 small outrigger wheels near the wingtips to stop it tipping over.

 

Inside the landing gear: tires, brakes and maintenance

Airplane wheels look like oversized car wheels, but almost everything about them is built for much harsher work.

• Gear vs. wheels vs. bogies. A “landing gear” is one leg with its shock absorber. A “bogie” (or truck) is the frame at the bottom that holds 4 or 6 wheels on multiple axles. When people say a 747 has “five landing gears,” they mean five legs carrying 18 wheels.
• Nitrogen, not air. Airliner tires are filled with nitrogen. It is dry and inert, so pressure stays steadier through big temperature swings and there is no oxygen to react with hot rubber after a hard braking stop.
• High pressure. Airliner tires typically run at around 200 psi. Air Canada inflates its 777-200LR tires to 218 psi, against about 30 psi for a family car.
• Built-in safety valves. Wheels carry fuse plugs that melt at a set temperature. If the brakes overheat, the tire deflates gently instead of bursting.
• Short tread life. A main tire usually lasts somewhere between 200 and 400 landings; Air Canada puts its 777 average at roughly 250. Worn tires are then retreaded, often up to seven times or more, before the casing is scrapped.
• Quick changes. Two engineers can swap a 777 tire in about an hour, paperwork included. A single A380 tire costs roughly $5,500.

That puff of smoke you see at touchdown is the tire spinning up from zero to landing speed in a fraction of a second, leaving a layer of rubber on the runway. Airports have to blast that rubber off regularly, because the build-up makes runways slippery in the wet.

 

Frequently asked questions

How many wheels does a commercial airplane have?

Between 6 and 22. Single-aisle jets like the 737 and A320 have 6. Twin-aisle jets have 10 to 18, and the A380 has 22.

 

How many wheels does a Boeing 737 MAX have?

Six, the same as every other 737: 2 nose wheels and 2 on each main gear leg.

 

How many tires does a 747 have?

Eighteen. Each wheel carries one tire, so the tire count always matches the wheel count.

 

Does the A380 have the most wheels of any plane?

Of passenger planes, yes, with 22. The Antonov An-225 had 32 and the C-5 Galaxy has 28, but both are cargo aircraft.

 

Do airplane nose wheels have brakes?

No, not on airliners. The nose gear steers the airplane on the ground, while all the wheel brakes sit on the main gear.

 

Why do some planes have 6-wheel bogies and others 4?

A 6-wheel bogie lets a heavy twin-engine jet like the 777 or A350-1000 spread its weight without adding a third or fourth gear leg. Fewer legs means less weight and fewer parts.

 

How often are airplane tires changed?

Roughly every 200 to 400 landings, depending on the aircraft, runway surface and how the plane is flown. For a busy short-haul jet, that can be every few months.

 

The bottom line

Count the wheels and you can roughly guess an airplane’s weight class. Six wheels means a single-aisle jet like the 737 or A320. Ten means a mid-size widebody such as the 787 or A330. Fourteen points to a heavy twin like the 777 or A350-1000, 18 is the 747, and 22 can only be the A380. Next time you are at the gate, look under the wing: the landing gear tells you more about the airplane than its paint job does.