Best damn or luciest pilot

"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

at first Boeing didn't believe it really happened until they sent their
engineers out. They explaination is that the body itself generates so
much lift it could still fly.

If this account is true, then what does this say about the engineers of
this aircraft? Isn't the lift generated by the body itself taken into
account by these engineers?

--
Peter

"Peter R." wrote in message
...
"Robert M. Gary" wrote:

at first Boeing didn't believe it really happened until they sent their
engineers out. They explaination is that the body itself generates so
much lift it could still fly.

If this account is true, then what does this say about the engineers of
this aircraft? Isn't the lift generated by the body itself taken into
account by these engineers?

--
Peter

Yeah, but...

At first glance, the engineers probably looked at first order issues - can
the airplane fly straight and level with most of one wing missing? I'm sure
they had enough data in their files to say... At a certain speed, the good
wing generates X pounds of lift and a rolling moment of Y pound feet. The
remaining aileron can generate a rolling moment of Z pound feet to counter
the rolling moment from the wing. The answer was probably that Y Z, so
the aircraft would be uncontrollable.

As Dudley pointed out, there was probably a significant yaw induced due to
the asymmetric airframe. This would have reduced lift on the existing
wing, reduced the rolling moment, and allowed the wide fuselage to generate
enough lift at 250 knots to bring the airplane home. It is very doubtful
that the engineers had data for that flight condition at hand to override
the initial analysis based on the data they did have...

KB