A striking comment in a wonderful book on engineering design disasters
mentioned casually that the proof load on a particular aluminum airliner
wing would bend it to the vertical at the tips [if buckling did not
occur long before....]


When I went through 727 fixit school, they showed us a video of the static
test of that bird. THe wingtips came within about a yard of each other
before the whole thing let go, but when it did it looked like an aluminum
blizzard.

Jim