If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
B S D Chapman mail-at-benchapman-dot-co-dot-uk wrote in message ...
pacplyer wrote: As well, the lack of a robust wheel-well area that could not allow for tire fragments at 200mph seems like another pioneering shortfall just like square windows on a pressurized fuselage. My comments were not meant to denigrate either spectacular flying machine, just to point out that these were the first of their kind out of the gate, and that without good factory/national support the continued operation of a sole example seems risky at best. (but I too would like to see it fly again.) Sorry for missing this earlier... Common misconception. The square windows were not the point of failure on the Comet I, they just happened to change the design as a result of learning more about metal fatigue. The actual point of failure was around one of the nav arials (VOR I think). No, the point of fuselage failure was the large picture windows. That is what brought down the first Comets. It doesn't matter where the crack starts from. If you've got big square windows with sharp corners in them on an expanding and contracting surface, you've got a time bomb ticking. With small round windows (which the 707 by no small accident adopted) the Comet airframes might have stayed intact. True, the hole that the avionics aerial was mounted against was the beginning of the stress crack that ran around to the windows in at least one Comet I accident, but big cracks happen all the time on big iron today and the airframes don't just fall out of the sky because a crack started somewhere. Another example of this is the "stop drill" hole used a little ahead of the end of a crack (an approved repair method on some skins.) The round shape will relieve stress and stop the crack from progressing. Licensed mechanics today know you can't install a rotating beacon, a nav antenna, or a window for that matter, without producing a gradual radius in the corners of the hole in the skin. This becomes more important on pressurized structures. pacplyer |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
"I Want To FLY!"-(Youth) My store to raise funds for flying lessons | Curtl33 | Home Built | 0 | December 12th 03 12:01 AM |
"I Want To FLY!"-(Youth) My store to raise funds for flying lessons | Curtl33 | Aerobatics | 0 | December 12th 03 12:00 AM |
OT- beech starships still flying? | patrick mitchel | Home Built | 6 | November 30th 03 03:30 AM |