Boeing's Folding Wingtips Get the FAA Green Light (engadget.com)

Boeing received FAA approval today for its folding wingtips, which will let the planes stop at airport gates big enough to accommodate typical 777 models. "Once the 777X lands, the wingtips will rotate until they point upwards," reports Engadget. "Bloomberg notes that the plane will be the only commercial model in widespread use to have such a feature." From the report: The 777X's wingtips are so novel that U.S. regulators had to draw up new standards for them. The agency was concerned that the wingtips could cause safety issues -- some plane crashes occurred after pilots did not secure flaps on wings before takeoff. The FAA required Boeing to have several warning systems to make sure pilots won't attempt a takeoff before the wingtips are locked in the correct position. The FAA also wanted assurances that there was no way the tips would rotate during flight, and that the wings could handle winds of up to 75 miles per hour while on the ground.

The new wings are made from carbon-fiber composites that are stronger and lighter than the metal Boeing uses in other wings. That lets the company increase the wings' width by 23 feet to 235 feet, which makes flying more efficient. These are the widest wings Boeing has attached to a plane, surpassing the 747-8's 224 feet. However, it doesn't hold the record for a commercial plane: the Airbus A380 has a 262-foot-wide wing, which forced some airports to install gates specifically to accommodate it.

Comments

Re:The Navy Has Been Doing This for Decades

[Michael Woodhams]

I question your claim that airlines primarily get pilots from the military. A great many come through private pilot training followed by working for regional airlines. I expect that ex-military pilots would be a minority, although a sizeable one. Feel free to try to find an authoritative source to prove me wrong.

Even of the military pilots, a minority of them will have dealt with folding wings.

But I do agree that ensuring wings are unfolded should not be a big deal. It would be simple to implement either a warning or override to prevent more than taxiing thrust to be used when wings are folded.