4 ms·
Agree, the answer to the question was not articulated properly. Right at the beginning they should have said that the hole is for "releasing the moisture from
by achow 11y ago
Agree, the answer to the question was not articulated properly.
Right at the beginning they should have said that the hole is for "releasing the moisture from the air gap and stop (most) fog or frost from forming on the window."
The hole actually dilutes the safety wee bit: "In the extraordinarily unlikely event that the outer pane fails, the middle pane takes over. And yes, in that case, there would be a small leak of air through the breather hole—but nothing the aircraft’s pressurization system couldn’t easily cope with."
TL;DR: Aircraft window hole compromises safety to improve the view :-)
- LukeShu 11y agoUm... that's not how I read it. It's about controlling the failure modes. The pane with the hole is the "backup"--without the hole, it would be stressed roughly the same as the outer pane during normal operation. This has a major consequence: when one breaks, the backup will probably be in the same sorry state as the primary before it broke, so it will break soon too! Not a very good backup! Sure, because they are sharing the normal load, it is less likely to break in the first place. But, you'd have essentially doubled the strength, but removed the backup. That's not a good trade-off.
- WalterBright 11y agoA pinhole like that is not going to affect pressurization in the least.