4 ms·
Yes. It is a completely sealed part and is designed to float. Why it is designed that way, I don't know.
by mullen 11y ago
Yes. It is a completely sealed part and is designed to float. Why it is designed that way, I don't know.
- chrismarlow9 11y agoMaybe so it can be found in the event of a crash :D
- Gracana 11y agoProbably it is just designed to not get water inside it (wouldn't want your wings filling with water while flying), so it happens to float.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoAh, yes. Rain should not cause the wings to fill up with water...
- curtis 11y agoOne thing that is not clear to me is if this part is mostly aluminum or mostly carbon fiber. If it's carbon fiber, the fact that it can float might not be so surprising. Another interesting question is just how high it was floating in the water. If it just barely reached the surface then it would experience very little windage, so its path through the ocean would be almost entire driven by currents. I don't know that that would simplify drift analysis, but it seems like it might.
- 0xffff2 11y agoAre any parts on the 777 carbon fiber? I was under the impression that composite parts were a very new thing on commercial jetliners, significantly post-dating the design of the 777.
- InclinedPlane 11y agoNot a new thing at all, the A320 has used a lot of composite parts and it's been in service since the '80s. Planes being built using predominantly composite parts for the fuselage and wings, such as the 787, is new though.
- engi_nerd 11y agoYou're absolutely right on all counts. The first use of carbon composites for commercial aircraft structures was the A310/A320 vertical tail. The A320's horizontal tails also used carbon composites. The A320 Neo uses carbon composites to an even higher degree to try to reduce weight and improve fuel economy.
- daveslash 11y agoWhile I don't doubt that it is sealed, I wouldn't think it would have to stay completely sealed to float: I'd expect that a sufficiently large air pocket trapped iinside could do the trick of keeping it afloat just enough for it to travel somewhere.
- digitalneal 11y agoDon't they have fuel tanks in the wings too? That might be a reason to have it completed sealed up.
- 0xffff2 11y agoIn the wings, yes, but this particular part is a control surface on the trailing edge of the wing. It definitely wouldn't be carrying fuel.