I was down in Melbourne doing consulting work for Boeing and I met some of the guys working on the "moving trailing edges" for the 787 (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/dev_team.html). It was pretty incredible, especially since I had access to their intranet at the time.
On the way back to Sydney, I had possibly one of the most violently turbulent plane trips I've ever experienced. Somehow, though, I felt safer.
Air Canada is making a serious move back to Boeing products with a big order of 787 Dreamliners as well... they are indeed lovely
I presume you've watched the video simulations. (YAY World Design Team *snicker*). She really is very pretty... makes an airplane geek like me all sniffy at the loveliness of her lines, bears a startling resemblance to a swallow. Love, just love those new wings, the lines are so perfectly graceful, and that tail!
I fight very hard against my prejudices. I know I'm a bitter old guy, that prejudices are wrong, that I should treat everyone and everything as they are, not as my preconceptions would make them be. But I still have one prejudice I have a terrible time fighting down. I can't hear Airbus without thinking French Airliner, and I can't hear French Airliner without thinking Smoking Hole in the Ground. :D
That said.. this looks to be the first commercial airliner with major structure made out of composites. I would be a lot more comfortable with aluminum and steel for a while. We have about 70 years of experience building airliners with those materials, and about none with composites.
Somebody had to take that next step to composite construction, and I'd just as soon have Boeing do it as anybody else. They're pretty good. On the other hand, military jets were pretty well tested when jet technology went from military to civillian aircraft-- and we all know what happened with the Comet.
Thing is, with the Comet it wasn't even the new technology that did them in. It was cabin pressurization, which Boeing and others were already using. Combined with the high altitudes that the high performance jet engines could deliver, and then combined with the fact that the Comet's designers innocently chose to use rectangular windows in the passenger cabin.
The new tech didn't make the plane crash. What made it crash was the combination of new tech with old tech, plus bad luck, plus the day after day, month after month pounding and grinding hard work to which commercial aircraft are uniquely subject. And that's what worrkes me. You just never know what's going to happen until you put all the parts together.
As would I, or one of the later Comets for that matter. They got that little window problem all fixed up, yeah. (Rather I'd trust them as much as anything. I LOVE flying, but I'm a very nervous flyer. Figure it out if you can, I can't.)
I think the problem wasn't the structure per se. It's that nobody made the connection that in a pressurized fuselage, even a minor crack at a window corner can "run," propelled by the interior pressure, and then the whole fuselage ruptures like a punctured balloon. Unless they incorporate rip stoppers into the structure, which I understand they now do.
Composite fatigue.. hrm. The worst I've heard of so far is that some of the composites in light aircraft have a short lifespan because they take damage from ultraviolet light. One would hope that's something Boeing has considered. I think it's probably only a problem with the more basic composites like fiberglass, but... (shrugs)
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On the way back to Sydney, I had possibly one of the most violently turbulent plane trips I've ever experienced. Somehow, though, I felt safer.
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I presume you've watched the video simulations. (YAY World Design Team *snicker*). She really is very pretty... makes an airplane geek like me all sniffy at the loveliness of her lines, bears a startling resemblance to a swallow. Love, just love those new wings, the lines are so perfectly graceful, and that tail!
If the real thing is even half that pretty. ...
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That said.. this looks to be the first commercial airliner with major structure made out of composites. I would be a lot more comfortable with aluminum and steel for a while. We have about 70 years of experience building airliners with those materials, and about none with composites.
Somebody had to take that next step to composite construction, and I'd just as soon have Boeing do it as anybody else. They're pretty good. On the other hand, military jets were pretty well tested when jet technology went from military to civillian aircraft-- and we all know what happened with the Comet.
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I wonder if there is such a thing as "composite fatigue."'
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Thing is, with the Comet it wasn't even the new technology that did them in. It was cabin pressurization, which Boeing and others were already using. Combined with the high altitudes that the high performance jet engines could deliver, and then combined with the fact that the Comet's designers innocently chose to use rectangular windows in the passenger cabin.
The new tech didn't make the plane crash. What made it crash was the combination of new tech with old tech, plus bad luck, plus the day after day, month after month pounding and grinding hard work to which commercial aircraft are uniquely subject. And that's what worrkes me. You just never know what's going to happen until you put all the parts together.
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If someone had actually learnt a lesson from history, then the designers would have known they were heading for trouble.
Victorian engineers had used strain gauges on ships to show how stress built up around sharp corners when a structure was put under repetitive loads.
But I'd certainly trust my life to the structural integrity of a Nimrod (the military version of the Comet, and still flying very happily).
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I think the problem wasn't the structure per se. It's that nobody made the connection that in a pressurized fuselage, even a minor crack at a window corner can "run," propelled by the interior pressure, and then the whole fuselage ruptures like a punctured balloon. Unless they incorporate rip stoppers into the structure, which I understand they now do.
Composite fatigue.. hrm. The worst I've heard of so far is that some of the composites in light aircraft have a short lifespan because they take damage from ultraviolet light. One would hope that's something Boeing has considered. I think it's probably only a problem with the more basic composites like fiberglass, but... (shrugs)
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Just about any material can fail due to fatigue fracturing.
Composites should be more resistant, but will probably not show signs of imminent failure as well as the more traditional materials.
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