http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16942361

Oppppssss……..

they are replacing them under warranty, though, and there’s been no ‘just flying along’ failures yet?

I thought the cracks were in the metal brackets which hold the carbon wings onto the plane.

I could be wrong though…

Qantas workers found the cracks, measuring less than 2cms long, in the wing rib feet – the metal brackets that connect the wing’s ribs to its skin.

Should have made the ribs out of carbon….

I thought the cracks were in the metal brackets which hold the carbon wings onto the plane.

Probably, the article just says ‘bracket’ but every armchair engineer knows ‘aircraft grade aluminium’ is the best don’t they?

I bet the brackets are Titanium – a wing for life and all that….

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1516-14392006000300002&script=sci_arttext

a wing for life and all that….

😆

Take your science elswhere Macavity, we want knee jerk reactions and someone to blame this outrage on.

Erm…the A380 wings are NOT carbon fibre!

Only the central wing box is IIRC (the really critical bit).

and 😆 @ the wing for life!

whose wings are made in North Wales

Carbon bike stuff is made in China, so we’re all good, yeah?

As others have pointed out, the wings of the A380 aren’t carbon.

The reason why airliners are subject to extremely stringent checks is to spot potential problems before they result in the loss of an airframe.

What you want is 100% aluminium construction, which bends rather than failing catastrophically. None of that nasty carbon. Like this.

metal wings and ribs

don’t let mere facts get on the way of a good scare story though, eh

thisisnotaspoon

OK

I formally register my appreciation of this most excellent thread.

Take your science elswhere Macavity, we want knee jerk reactions and someone to blame this outrage on.

+1

My indignation at not being allowed to rant & rave without good reason or basis in fact is what I live for!

Global warming = more turbulence = wings snapping off mid flight arrrrrgghhhhhh

njee – not sure if you realise but that is a Comet which is a perfect example of catastrophic aluminium failure. Mainly due poor design giving high stress concentrations at windows but all the same there was several instantly lost at altitude over oceans. An aircraft fuselage is the perfect example of highly stressed thin wall aluminium going bang.

Seem to recall it took them a while to find out why Comets were falling out the sky; they ended up building a pressurised water tank or something like that, and cycling it until it failed. Turned out square windows in pressurised aircraft are a really bad idea; the Americans used round windows in their jets, and thus was dealt a pretty much fatal blow to the UK’s hopes of dominating in passenger jets.

Mainly due poor design giving high stress concentrations at windows but all the same there was several instantly lost at altitude over oceans

Almost correct…IIRC the design was just fine, but in construction they opted for squared off instrumentation windows instead of the rounded edge windows on top of the fuselage that were specified. Compromises were made with the riveting and materials used too.

But I’m being a pedant here. The point is that the performance of early jet airliners taught us a great deal about the fatigue strength of aluminium and the necessary manufacturing processes. By the time Concorde prototypes flew (just twenty years after the Comet’s first flight) we’d pretty much got it right. The only other non-aluminium fast jets of the era that I can think of are the SR-71 which was constructed from titanium as a necessity to deal with high temperatures and the Soviet MiG 25, which was constructed mainly from steel for similar reasons.

whose wings are made in North Wales

Carbon bike stuff is made in China, so we’re all good, yeah?

We should put Brant in charge of purchaseing for airbus I think. Although it may result in really steep seat angles which make climbing more comfortable, but mean we all have to stand up when coming into land.

njee – not sure if you realise but that is a Comet which is a perfect example of catastrophic aluminium failure. Mainly due poor design giving high stress concentrations at windows but all the same there was several instantly lost at altitude over oceans. An aircraft fuselage is the perfect example of highly stressed thin wall aluminium going bang.

Yes, I really do realise that, my comment was 100% sarcastic. Was that really not obvious 😕

LOL at carbon haterz using failure in metal as an example.

Does anbody else remember the thread discussing a Scott Ransom which had failed and lots of people commenting on how carbon was a rubbish material for bikes – until it turned out it was actually an aluminium one? 😆

LOL at carbon haterz using failure in metal as an example.

Lol at the muppets who who can’t grasp the concept or irony?

Anyone using the word ‘haterz’ not in the context of lolcats should be made to read the daily mail (I’m struggling to think of a worse punnishment this morning).

Quality druidh 😉

Was that really not obvious

it was to some

Thank god!

ROLF @ spoon

cracks in wings ‘made in North Wales’, as though where they are made has anything to do with it.

Or did I get that wrong and infact they are cheap Welsh wings??

Oh dear, no amount of backpedalling/irony claims can save thisisnotaspoon…he…is….