Winglet sliced off?

wrote in message
oups.com...
...
737-800 spiraled out of control after the collision, which I could
envision happening if the lift/drag of the main wings had a large
amount of asymmetry due to the loss of a winglet.

Winglets are good, but not that good.


--
Geoff
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Winglets aren't designed to produce lift; they are designed to reduce drag
by minimizing wing tip vortices. Losing a winglet should have a pretty
minimal effect on the lift of that wing.

Mike Schumann

wrote in message
oups.com...
I was recently on a SWA flight aboard a 737-800, and looking at the
large winglet that the 737-800 sports (for lift enhancement, drag
reduction), it occured to me that perhaps the recent 737-800 that went
down in Brazil after colliding with an Embraer jet may have had one of
its winglets sliced off. The reports that I have read state that the
737-800 spiraled out of control after the collision, which I could
envision happening if the lift/drag of the main wings had a large
amount of asymmetry due to the loss of a winglet. The Embraer lost a
portion of its wing, so if the two planes clipped wings, odds are the
Embraer hit the 10 feet tall winglet rather than the wing itself since
they are both in level flight.

This is pure speculation, but it will be interesting to see if the
final report from Brazil indicates that this is what occured.

Dean

Mike Schumann wrote:
Winglets aren't designed to produce lift; they are designed to reduce drag
by minimizing wing tip vortices. Losing a winglet should have a pretty
minimal effect on the lift of that wing.

And according to the PDF posted in this thread, only in the vicinity of
5% or so drag reduction. Well, that's probably a pretty substantial
fuel savings, but not a real big controllability issue.

wrote:
it occured to me that perhaps the recent 737-800 that went
down in Brazil after colliding with an Embraer jet may have had one of
its winglets sliced off.

Actually, the Embraer had its winglet sliced off, and it landed fine.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=2521798

wrote in message ups.com...
:
: Jim Macklin wrote:
: Remember the Voyager had wingtip damage at take-off. They
: did some maneuvers to break their winglets off.
:
: A few years ago a 707 had an engine fire and melted about
: half a wing off the airplane.
: http://aviation-safety.net/database/...0628-0&lang=en
:
: A vertical winglet would be easily compensated with rudder
:
:
: The winglets on the Voyager were much smaller in size both compared to
: the wingspan and absolute size. The 737-800 winglets are very tall (8
: to 10 feet) and fairly large in comparison to the rudder size and
: wingspan.
:
: You may be right that the rudder could compensate, but I could also be
: convinced that the rudder wouldn't be enough to do it.
:
: Dean
:


The rudder has to be powerful enough to keep the plane going straight at V2 with one engine out and the other producing
full power...

I speculate that the 737 experienced rapid decompression. The flight crew pitched down and initiated the emergency
descent profile, usually includes a spiral turn and dropping gear (experts chime in). Then either they lost control or
had some other structural failure that they were not able to recover from...

On Wed, 11 Oct 2006 14:32:46 -0500, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

Remember the Voyager had wingtip damage at take-off. They
did some maneuvers to break their winglets off.

A few years ago a 707 had an engine fire and melted about
half a wing off the airplane.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...0628-0&lang=en

A vertical winglet would be easily compensated with rudder

Or differential power...

Dave