4 ms·
Clearly Allen and his team did the necessary engineering work, but I'm not sure the GlobalFlyer is a good example. It had a single mid-mounted engine, and had a
by endorphone 9y ago
Clearly Allen and his team did the necessary engineering work, but I'm not sure the GlobalFlyer is a good example. It had a single mid-mounted engine, and had a gross, fully loaded weight of 22,000lbs. This thing has 70,000+ lbs of engines alone. The torque has to be absolutely colossal.
Again, I know that much smarter people did the math, but from the eye check this does not look like a tenable design.
- blunte 9y agoI agree. There are so many forces at such incredible potential levels of torque that the center wing must be almost entirely full of structural elements... and those probably pass through to the outer wings. Imagine differing oscillations of pitch or yaw from each fuselage happening at the same time... and at just the right/wrong frequency for the connecting structure. I'm sure I'm just overly paranoid, but often we find out long after something is built that some "little possibility" was overlooked.
- SkyMarshal 9y ago>Imagine differing oscillations of pitch or yaw from each fuselage happening at the same time... and at just the right/wrong frequency for the connecting structure. Exactly. I expect they have real-time computer control of all control services that quickly adapt the relative attitude of both fuselages to prevent over-stressing the wing, but what about "rogue waves" of turbulence hitting each fuselage differently. What's the safety factor on both the adaptive controls and, as a backup, the structural integrity of the wing?