well, any new project will mutate over time during the conception phase, but I had thought that the program was actually up-and-running, and no longer in the conception phase……..

[from a completely un-biased standpoint as I am not actually a boeing/airbus/BAe employee…and my company is working on both companies leading designs]

Those wings look awfully thin to carry the fuel it needs…..I can imagine wings that thin flexing like that but I cannot imagine wings that thin accomodating the fuel required….I think theres an element of artistic license there

its a shame, I like the swept tips to the vertical and horizontal stabs…..no mention has been made to the aircrafts cruising speed now that design changes have been made. simple fact is is that by making the nose more blunt you decrease the fineness ratio, which helps in quantising drag of bodies, if i remember rightly……

I’ve not heard of any reasons as to why the tips might change, one possible answer may well be fatigue due to vibration of the parts, as those parts will be immersed in the vortices emitted at the tips of the surfaces, which aircraft are stuck with (untill inifinite wings come along 😉 !! )

I happenned to hear about these changes at work on monday, but didnt think much of it…..was more interested in the composites work they are doing, and the claims being made by boeing engineers(and some interesting rumours about the a350…..)(btw there is an element of cross-talk between people at the actual engineer level as people move from airbus to boeing and back….aircraft engineering is a pretty small world! )

yeah there’ll be no room to get the ‘bats’ in the right place……(yes, I know they are called cues!)

great photo’s am getting aircraft photography withdrawal symptons!!

Like the 125 (G-TCAP)…has the same colours as the king airs that do the filton shuttle flights so it must belong to BAe Systems.

WD said=>Your initial comment that stated that metals are superior to composites in all regards was a rather misdirected blanket statement, and wrong IMO.

I think if you read what i said, that, on a purely weight basis, composites are not superior to metallics, I guess I should have qualified that with somthing like

“given a useful part designed from metallic and composite ends of the materials spectrum, metallics have been proven numerous times to be superior designs than composites”

WD said =>Composites possess characteristics that metals can’t match which shouldn’t be too hard to believe.

I do believe, but those characteristics come at a number of costs, two main costs are axial loading chracteristics (which is not always a problem) and the brittle (next to no plastic range) nature. There is no inbuilt ‘safety catch’ that plastic extension gives the metallics (well the non-brittle durable metals in the 2000 series definitely and the 7000 series does well too)

WD said=> Once again, you frequently mention wing ribs which are only one component of a large aircraft.

Well yup, thats what i deal with on an every day basis so?

WD said=>If by switching in composites for metal in just about every other component manufacturers can not only save weight but create shapes previously cost prohibitive with metals.

Would love to hear your ideas on composite ribs/riblets and frames to attach leading edge/trailing edge/spoilers oh, and please design me a flap track fairing bracket or two from composites, and make it so that its not ‘hand-made’ because most complex shapes are HAND MADE which is seriously costly, and inefficient.

WD said => Bombardier cuts the majority of the CRJ wing from a solid block of aluminum which is incrediably wasteful and inefficient.

so what, they did that on the buccaneer? it is a prefferred method of construction for wing skins on boeing and airbus aircraft, do you know why its the preferred method?

An integrally machined rib / stringers-skin combination / spar
1.is stronger.

2. has a better fatigue life than other methods, such as the old way (and I have not yet seen anything on a similar composite product)

3.doesnt require auto-claves and such a large amount of human input as similar composite structure would (ribs and the smallest spars will fit in autoclaves but you wont get half an a380 wings worth of skin and stiffener in any autoclave ive seen nor can you use the J shape stiffener section, come to think of it, you wont be able to use many cross sections for stiffeners–oh dear…perhaps the metallic solution is more optimum with J shape than say I or just box section……..) I think on a par with the biggest has to be what boeing are doin with the 787 tech demo’s and the 787 fuselages, the new sub’s are being produced this way too…..hmm wonder where boeing picked the idea up from ?? 🙂

4.has a great deal less fixtures and fittings such as bolts which reduces weight/cost/time-to-produce/damage likelihood(oh and your brand new aircraft takes a beating on the assembly line to put it together! i think Brough process somthing like a 1000 concession reports from the wing assembly building a month, I see no reason why boeings would be lower (or higher!))

5.manufacturers get some of their money back as they ship the swarf back to the manufacturers for re-processing in stuff like drinks cans etc

6.as long as the billet is in good condition (which it almost always is) then the quality of the finished part is usually very high and can be checked quite quickly. The X-32 project knows to its cost that it only takes 1 slip on the lay up or one crinkle and you can waste a very large part and a great deal of money (oneof the wings had to be binned because QI showed up the crease in the middle of the fibres)

WD said =>Burt Rutan accomplished in a matter of years what NASA and other space agencies took decades to do with metal.

Nothing is impossible if you throw the money at it, he is a very talented designer, as is his staff and has mastered the art, now he has NASA eating out of his hand, good for him! And when his aircraft are re-entering the earth at somthing like mach 6 we’ll see how many ceramic tiles he’ll need….

WD said =>Dismissing the thought of such advances in Commerical aircraft is pretty narrowminded and perhaps a bit short sighted.

he has made no real advances so to speak, hes just a good engineer and a good engineer uses what he has available to get somthing done, he happenned to specialise in composites and there’s some stuff he cant or wont give out….if you look in the proteus cockpit you’ll see a grid like pattern of material which is apparantly a specially designed foam which adds to the structural integrity of the vehicle for buggerall weight increase, he cant or wont sell that idea!…….., and as the old saying goes, too many structures engineers can make somthing too heavy! he has his own well thought out way and its good, but its good for what it does (the beech starship isnt rutans greatest success…..everyone has an off day…….. it was a victim of its designers and the FAA argue amongst yourselves who’s really to blame). The main problem, in this discussion, is that burts structural solutions just dont apply to commerical airliners, he often makes it easy for himself in the way he does things, mainly by removing fuselages as much as possible and using boom for fuel, or other purposes, or twin wings, or other things that help in ways other than making the aircraft look cool (which the proteus seriously does in my humble opinion)

WD =>I’m not saying that I understand all the in’s and out’s of this complex topic but when there is a will, there is a way in aviation.

If i tell you how much it costs will you give me the money??? 🙂

coanda

bmused55 you p*ss me off, do you know why you do that?? not because you hero worship boeing, but because you have no engineering background and therefore base your replies on opinions, which in general are somebody elses opinions.

Go read up on materials selection and designing wing structures and then come back and answer (oh I forgot somebody already has read-up for you on wing structures.) And btw, BAe were making composite fighter wings on the typhoon, so we know where it works and where it doesnt.

Spoken like a true BAe/Airbus employee.

Airbus seem to be unwilling to accept that Boeing are right… and their employees also it seems. Composite is here… heck Airbus is no stranger to it.

This situation reminds me of Boeings complacency in light of the A320 program. “FBW is not the way forward” I beleive they said….

The A380 is already a dinosaur because of its metal construction.
I am willing to bet that the next all new plane from Airbus will follow the 787’s footsteps.

I hate to pee on peoples parade….well actually I dont.

Airbus does not need to adopt the same compositecompositecompositecompositecompositecompositecomposite mind frame as boeing. And actually boeing doesnt either. frankly apart from tubes, composites are less effective in every structural area than metallics purely based on the weight of the final designed part.

Only on a PURELY POLITICAL basis composite ribs are used for about half the a380 wing, but every engineer (who isnt a devout composite god worshipper) will say that composite parts are more often than not heavier than metallic.

A400M’s ‘composite’ wing has all metallic ribs…….

A350’s ‘composite’ wing has all metallic ribs…….

And if the spanish hadnt made a huge factory for it………the A380 would have metallic ribs………geez AE give me some problems.

coanda