4 ms·
Since you are posting on HN and I'm guessing you are technically minded, you might find this really interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0 htt
by sjm-lbm 8y ago
Since you are posting on HN and I'm guessing you are technically minded, you might find this really interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai2HmvAXcU0 - it's a video from a documentary about the development of the Boeing 777. Specifically, the video shows a test where they bend/stress the 777 wings to the point where they actually snap.
Spoiler alert: they snap at orders of magnitude more flex than you've ever seen.
Even for very severe turbulence (like you experienced), it's very comforting for me to know (via that video evidence) that even if I haven't seen turbulence this bad, the people that made the airplane definitely thought about it.
- danpat 8y agoI was going to post this same comment. When I was a kid, I used to look out the window and worry that the wings might fall off because I could see them flexing. Then I watched the video above, and I was like - huh, I've only ever seen the wings move maybe 1% of the max stress test amount, and that was in really bad turbulence. I stopped worrying that the wings would fall off. Once you know the wings won't fall off, I found it very easy to picture a safe/glide recovery from any other basic accident, and I stopped worrying altogether.