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Boeing's New 787 Wings — Amazingly Flexible
An anonymous reader writes "Boeing is making the wings of its new 787 out of carbon fiber instead of metal. That means the wings are so strong and flexible that they could bend upward and touch above the fuselage — or come close. The company is expected to deliver the first 787 to All Nippon Airlines in May 2008. 'Boeing has completed static testing of a three-quarter wingbox, but engineers are still considering whether to limit testing of the full wing to a 150% load limit held for 3 sec. or to continue bending it to see when it breaks. 'There's a raging debate within the engineering team to see if we should break it or not,' says [787 General Manager Mike] Bair.'" They have come a long way in wing flexibility.
The 787 will be the envy of "tuner" kidz everywhere with it's carbon fiber wings.
If only one could find a 4ft diameter chrome exhaust tip...
Pull them back, let them go, and... BOEINNNNG!
Enter the flapping apparatus! It'll make the passengers feel more comfortable, having their plane flap it's wings!
If any article screams out for a Slashdot poll, this one is it.
1. Chicken out and don't break 'em
2. See how far they go and post it to YouTube
3. Orinthop mode! Pull 'em back and let 'em flap!
4. Cowboy Neal
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Airbus: Care for some metal wings?
Boeing Client: No, thank you, I take them flexible, like my women.
No, you are wrong. Boeing use good old US carbon fiber, while the Europeans use that low rent carbon fibre stuff. No comparison at all. Carbon fibre comes in litres and the fibre length is in metres, while carbon fiber comes in gallons (or perhaps liters) and fibers are measured in feet, (or perhaps meters). See how easy they are to distinguish?
Pining for the fjords
...as long as they post a video of it on their website!
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Am I going to be the first person here to think these engineers sound like they're just having way too much fun with this?
Also I wonder what would break first, the wing, or the connection to the plane. I'm expecting the video to hit the internet in about a week.
If they don't break, ensure they break in some way! ;-)
Seriously though, that idea isn't useful only for entertainment and cool effects, it is useful to know the tipping point, what boundaries they're actually working with, and not just to see if it does or does not work. And as they so often tell there -- the only way to know for sure is to test it in the real world on a non-scale model!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This would make one heck of a good video for Youtube would if it's done right. I would be very interested to watch the test accompanied by the 1812 overture with the wings snapping in a spectacular fashion just as the drums hit! Oh, and add two squirrels and a cat fighting to the video. And while you're at it add lightsabers and two chicks kissing. Now that would make a good video!
load "$",8,1
What a huge distraction, I just went on a 30 min youtube binge watching destructive testing of aircraft parts... Back to work!
Pfffft. Real slashdotters only need a headline.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
>Or you could, you know, give up a disgusting habit that is poisoning you.
What? Give up slashdot? Never. I'll die first.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
I want to see the 787 do the Y-M-C-A :)
What I think will happen is that tips will meet. They'll try to compress the wings vertically, but before any definitive results are in, there will be a very loud "SPROING" in which case, the wings will be freed from their restraints. They will smash toward ground, propelling the plane into the air. As they bounce back to equilibrium the wings will flap carrying the plane roughly 1000km in the direction it was pointed. Eliminating the need for any fuels on short trips. Carbon Fiber FTW!
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking... If you take a look out the windows on the left side of the plane, you will notice our right wing....
The above comments are not guaranteed to make sense to anyone other than the author...
What's a headline?
/.
I'm not used to all these new fangled additions to
Infuriate left and right
Yes! And when it's time for departure, we exit out the rear lacquered up in shock absorbing dirty white suits, dropping down into our parked cars.
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
Haven't you learned anything from Mythbusters? Since when do we not test things just because we don't need to know the answer? Get Jamie and Adam on it and the build crew will clean up the mess!
must... stay... awake...
Meh! Everyone knows the summary bears no relation to the article.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Don't you remember the old WWII slogan: Loose Lifts Bring Rifts.
Then there's a whole new meaning to "If you break it, you bought it!".
In Soviet Russia a beowulf cluster of these things imagines you welcoming your new, neural-network overlords.
Sorry, I didn't realise that you could shrink the downward pull of gravity. I am fairly certain that it stays at about 9.81 m/s^2...
No, I think that the "pull" of gravity is mass times the acceleration due to gravity. When you "pull" on something, you are talking about the force, not the acceleration. Not only are you a pedantic ass, but you are also wrong.
Learn to love Alaska
Sincerely, every engineer who ever got a degree in aerospace.
Plus, uh, Beavis.
Does it run linux?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those!
In Soviet Russia, aeroplane wings break you!
etc, etc, etc.
Clearly, you must be new here.
Fly the new 787 - It's so strong, you only need one plane for two towers.
.....
If this doesn't bring my karma down
For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
because if Chuck Norris were on an aluminum airplane he could go out on the bent wing and bend it back, but if he were on a carbon fiber airplane he would just shout, "I've got nothing to work with here assholes!" shoot everyone on the plane, jump out the window, knit a parachute out of his sweater on the way down and land topless on a throng of adoring Laotian women.
ôó
Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
The Mythbusters school of aeronautical engineering?
Newsletter? I'm blind you insensitive clod.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
What is the point of having all that cool test equipment and cameras if you can't break stuff ?!?
;)
hehe, 30 years later i still remember a trip to the local power station that had the test equipment for powerlines and stuff. They crushed a large ceramic insulator til it blew up. Took some insane amount of pressure like 20000 psi. Quite spectacular. They had a rig for pulling apart a powerline too, we would have killed for that test
such bad taste. There's at least 5,000 people who wouldn't find that funny.
Haven't you heard the old saying? Brandy's dandy, Liquor's quicker, but Lacquer... well there's no good rhyme for it but suffice to say you'll be in a bad way the next morning.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"