Winging It

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Stephen

A short film about flying. And about the wing on the plane that I was in. Yes – the wing.

I flew this morning and enjoyed a little bit of engineering magic.

 

 

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19 Responses to Winging It

  1. Carl says:
    March 29, 2011 at 10:56 pm

    love it! i’ve been a pilot for eleven years and it is till magical to me when i pull back on the yoke and move skyward…

  2. Sarah says:
    March 29, 2011 at 11:55 pm

    Nice video! I always choose a seat just behind the wings, and even though I’m not an expert (I wish I was!) I’ve learnt a lot about flying just by watching them. Well, if you’re a scientist they’re definitely the most entertaining thing of any flight (apart from the people you sit next to)!

  3. Steve J says:
    March 30, 2011 at 3:54 am

    Very interesting clip, I did not know about the drag reducing winglet innovation! I still think it’s ironical that when you get to J4 of the M4 for Heathrow there are signs restricting older commercial vehicles in/out of the city as you are entering ‘a low emission’ zone! But let’s not go there.

    It interesting to see the two-part flap design and by how much it can extend by to increase the wing curvature. I know that on some craft that the ‘spoilers’ you refer to as being deployed on the ground can be activated in the air at lower speeds (<240 knots, to avoid excessive wing stresses) to act as an 'air-brake' and rapidly slow the craft down in a short period of time. I also like how certain jet engine planes roar upon landing as they turbines reverse temporarily to slow the craft down.

    My Granddad was an aviation engineer who worked on the nose and undercarriage for Concorde and also Boeing. Apparently, each of Concorde’s wings was only held on by two bolts, each about the width of your arm to allow for the significant flex experienced during flight. Shame about the less well built DC-10 that littered debris on the runway which single-handedly put Concorde out of service 🙁 Permanently? Could get you some specifics, but they would be in non-SI Imperial Units.

  4. Stephen says:
    March 30, 2011 at 8:41 am

    Carl – I’ve only ever been a passenger. I imagine it’s an entirely different (and more wonderful) experience to be at the controls…

    Sarah and Steve J – thanks for your comments. Good to know I’m not alone in my appreciation of these things.

    I had always been an admirer of Concorde. As a resident of London, it used to regularly pass over our house. You could always tell the plane overhead was Concorde because of the noise, but that didn’t really bother me. I kind of miss it.

    • KristiV says:
      March 30, 2011 at 7:07 pm

      Nice film, Stephen! I have an older iPhone, and I don’t think it has video capability.

      I can’t imagine that the Concorde was any noisier or more annoying than the military cargo planes that fly over my neighborhood almost every afternoon/evening. We’re under one of the flight paths for Lackland AFB, and I think it’s the C5 that’s especially loud.

      • Stephen says:
        March 30, 2011 at 10:52 pm

        It may be just as noisy as the military transports that you have to endure Kristi’s, but it is undoubtedly more beautiful to look at…

        • rpg says:
          March 31, 2011 at 10:51 am

          actually, if it’s noise you want, you should try standing by the runway when a VC-10 tanker and a Tornado 2-ship, laden for bear, do a full tactical takeoff. Woohoo.

        • Stephen says:
          March 31, 2011 at 11:47 am

          I once stood near to a Harrier doing a vertical take-off. That’s about as loud as I can handle…

  5. Bob O'H says:
    March 30, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    Nice film, although the narration reminded me of this film. Sorry.

    • Stephen says:
      March 30, 2011 at 10:25 pm

      Heh – well, to be fair, the commentary is about the same pace but I think mine is more accurate… 😉

  6. Stephen says:
    March 30, 2011 at 6:05 pm

    Can’t see that film Bob because I’m on my phone. I hope I’m not going to be too upset (otherwise I may have to unfriend you on Mendeley…)

  7. Steve J says:
    March 30, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    If it was an android based phone it would support flash 😉

  9. Steve J says:
    March 30, 2011 at 8:06 pm

    😮 Why do you have such strong views against flash rpg? I appreciate that H.264 is an infinitely more capable codec for video these days, but still.

    More to the point, I thought Apple supplied all iPhones with a YouTube app by default, although it must stream in something other than the native .flv video format…

    • Stephen says:
      March 30, 2011 at 10:29 pm

      Oddly, I found that it worked on my iPhone once I’d hooked up to a wireless network.

      But I do occasionally find some YouTube videos that won’t play. Not sure what Apple does to make some work – are they transcoding everything into h.264?

      • Steve J says:
        March 30, 2011 at 11:06 pm

        Maybe Apple restricts ‘high’ bandwidth apps such as YouTube to Wifi only, so that they won’t work on the mobile 3G/HSDPA network. I know that this is the case for FaceTime. This is probably to stop people getting charged £100’s for going over their monthly data-plan limit (£1+/MB) and to provide an optimal user experience; streaming on 3G can be temperamental at the best of times! Personally, I am waiting for the Android based Samsung Galaxy S II to be released.

        It appears that at least some YouTube content is being transcoded into H.264.

  10. Steve J says:
    March 30, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    Maybe Apple restricts ‘high’ bandwidth apps such as YouTube to Wifi only, so that they won’t work on the mobile 3G/HSDPA network. I know that this is the case for FaceTime. This is probably to stop people getting charged £100’s for going over their monthly data-plan limit (£1+/MB) and to provide an optimal user experience; streaming on 3G can be temperamental at the best of times! Personally, I am waiting for the Android based Samsung Galaxy S II to be released.

    It appears that at least some YouTube content is being transcoded into H.264.

  11. Svetlana Pertsovich says:
    April 4, 2011 at 7:08 am

    Hmm… “Mechanization of wing: wing flaps, ailerons, etc “. The question, which I had to answer on the term exam, when I was learning in Aviation Institute in 1982. Now it is called Aero-Space University.
    My first university…

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