Flying back on Tuesday I was wondering what the little antenna on the wings are for, they look like car aerials. What, why please.

Air speed sensors?

Edit: Pitot tube is the name I was looking for.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube

I dont think the wing things are pitot tubes.I think they are static dischargers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_discharger

Pitot tubes are normally on the fuselage, near the front of the aircraft where the air is undisturbed by the rest of the plane.
(not a plane expert, but fly 4 times a week, terrified)

Nickjb you idiot, he asked for aeroplane experts!

As soon as I saw you had answered molgrips then I knew it was wrong..

Wing mounted pitot tube. Not saying that’s what the OP saw, just that it could be.

Nope, you’re all wrong.

They hold the little wires God holds as he controls your flight 🙄

on the trailing edge they’re static dischargers

Its the RC antenna so the illuminati can take control and land you at a secret base, and then drop aircraft parts in the sea a year later..

Wing mounted pitot tube. Not saying that’s what the OP saw, just that it could be.

Aye good point, I had assumed OP meant the trailing edge things.

Static dischargers Toys gets it right. As does Nick

Being afraid generates wisdom.
My mate yesterday described flying as

“screaming through the air in nothing more than a coke can with an over inflated sense of ego”.

Funny how friends do so love to press you when you have a little button.
Anyway I’m not sharing my prize with nickc, he read my answers.

“bah”

As soon as I saw you had answered molgrips then I knew it was wrong

Hehe.. yes.. well I thought of the Pitot tubes then I looked it up and realied they were facing not trailing, and that the OP was probably in cattle class with the rest of us plebs looking at the trail edge of the wings.

On large commercial jets you don’t tend to get pitot tubes on the wings. You want the wing to be as clean as possible and hanging anything off the wing is avoided (apart form the essential engines and flap tracks).

On small single engined aircraft the pitot tubes will be hung off the wing because they need to be into clean air unaffected by the actual aircraft – so on a single engined aircraft a fuselage mounted Pitot tube would be behind the prop, so not clean air or an accurate reading of airspeed.

Toys has the answer.

Flying is not the challenge, that’s easy. You have a huge wing sucking you up into the air. It’s landing that is the challenge and where things tend to go wrong!

On a documentary I saw about the B747 a good while back, the Boeing Chief Engineer said that the amount of suction per square inch that the wing of a B747 generates is equivalent to a baby sucking on a straw. But you have so many acres worth of wing that the aircraft is sucked up into the sky. I sort of found that alarming and comforting at the same time.

Chemtrail dispensers

Another one for the aeroplane experts:

“the pilot saw the propeller falling away”

this is a *bad thing* yes?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-35544132

fortunately the problem’s been known about since 1939 so it could never happen today. Oh.

It’s landing that is the challenge and where things tend to go wrong!

Try to stay in the middle of the air.

Do not go near the edges of it.

The edges of the air can be recognised by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult to fly there.

You see, I told you all about friends and button pressing. wwaswas, you are on the fecal plated Xmas card list now.