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One 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 s
by curtis 11y ago
One 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.