Scared of heights

[NutmegCT]

Nial - I thought the New Jersey ban on self-service re-fueling only applies to cars ...

:banana:

Tom

 

[aeronca65t]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Good one!

 

[Silverghost]

N.J. ANG = A-irplanes N-eeding G-as?? :laugh: LOL VERY cool video!!

 

[JPSmit]

Shoot, I'd ride it and enjoy the view. Always wanted to enjoy the view out of the nose of an old bomber.

Got to fly through the Rockies years ago, looking out of the nose of an Aurora - pretty wonderful day.

 

[texas_bugeye]

The Comet is still one of the best looking passenger aircraft, IMO.

Agree Engines in the wing root made for a clean super sleek look. To bad the composite's technology were not as far as they are now...

 

[70herald]

The Comet is still one of the best looking passenger aircraft, IMO.

Agree Engines in the wing root made for a clean super sleek look. To bad the composite's technology were not as far as they are now...

And of course it was to bad that the windows were square... The history of commercial aviation could have been quite different.

 

[NutmegCT]

from "Century of Flight" -

January 10, 1954. A BOAC Comet departed Rome. At 26,000 feet, the pilot radioed another plane: "Did you get my ...". Followed by silence. Seconds later fishermen near the island of Elba saw pieces of the Comet fall into the sea.

<span style="font-style: italic">"Strangely, the U.S. Civil Aeronautics Administration, predecessor to the FAA, had misgivings about the square windows of the Comet several years earlier and refused to grant it an air-worthiness certificate so it could fly in the United States."</span>

https://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviation%20history/coming%20of%20age/De%20Havilland%20Comet.htm

By the way, quite a story about the investigations of the rapid depressurization problem. Early clue: paint from inside the cabin was found on the vertical stabilizer.

T.

 

[Twosheds]

I think that the explosive decompression was due more to metal fatigue of the thin skin from pressurisation/depressurisation/wing flexing cycles than from square windows.

In other words, I think that the failure would still have occurred even with round windows. It just would have occurred at a different spot. After more hours, though.

Like Jimmy Stewart's Reindeer. No Highway in the Sky.

Just my humble opinion.

 

[PC]

...I think that the explosive decompression was due more to metal fatigue of the thin skin from pressurisation/depressurisation/wing flexing cycles than from square windows....

The pressure/de-pressure flex cycles caused fatigue, which was concentrated at corners of the square windows.

Everything on an airframe will fail <span style="font-style: italic">eventually</span>. The trick is to design everything to fail way past the point in time when you plan to retire it from service.

Square inside corners concentrate stresses and accelerate the rate of fatigue in the area. A square corner will fail long before a rounded corner will.

The one crashed Comet whose failure point they were able to determine (airframe G-ALYP) had a stress failure that started from a rivet hole near the corner of a composite radio direction finder port.

...Like Jimmy Stewart's Reindeer. No Highway in the Sky....

Friggin' Fox Network! I managed to catch some of <span style="font-style: italic">No Highway In The Sky</span> a while back and figured I'd catch the whole thing soon (since they play movies over and over).

Then those @#$&! idiots made it a "premium" station and my cable company yanked it from the basic lineup. (I ain't payin' for HBO and Showtime I'll never watch just to catch the occasion movie on Fox I would.)



pc.

 

[Roger]

A DH Comet was the first jet airliner I ever flew on, many, many years ago.