>>1989887A landing aircraft has a certain amount of energy, which is to say "it weighs however many tons and it is moving at a certain velocity." To make it stop, you need to remove that energy.
Work is the process of removing that energy and bringing it to a stop. Work is force multiplied by displacement (the distance over which the force operates).
If you can increase the displacement, less force is required to do the work.
This is why landing gear are squishy. They squish so that they receive less force by increasing the displacement.
hth
