On 2007-09-18 07:06:06 -0700, WhoGivesAFig? said:

This could be huge

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ABP...2003889769.pdf

Hmmm. A retired employee who worked for Boeing for 46 years claims to
know more than the FAA and Boeing about how planes should be crash
tested. He concludes that composites are not as crashworthy as metal,
but does not back his assertions up with any hard data.

His complaint is that composite materials are stronger in some
directions than they are in others, that cracking is less visible, and
that composites are more subject to fire and more vulnerable to
lightning. He points out that g levels in a crash are unlikely to be
uniform all along a composite structure. All of this is true, but he
seems to be alleging some sort of Boeing coverup of these facts. He
discounts actual experience with other composite aircraft, saying that
either they are not airliners subjected to the stress and number of
flights that airliners get, or that the numbers of such composite
aircraft are too few to be statistically significant.

Of course, his report will make great fodder for trial lawyers when the
first 787 crashes, no matter what the actual cause of death of the
passengers is. Weldon seems to be down at the site trying to tell
people how to crash test an airplane even though he no longer works
there. No doubt his experience is valuable, but he cannot possibly be
aware of everything that Boeing is doing to mitigate these problems and
Boeing is certainly not going to give corporate secrets to former
employees.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor