Interesting aviation facts

[Dematic24224041]

Feel free to post some interesting aviation facts here are some i have found

• Most planes flying internationally have their home country’s flag painted on or around their tails. Generally, the flag is facing the proper way round on the left (port) side of the aircraft and backward on the starboard side. Why? Because that’s how it would look if a real flag were hoisted on a pole above the airplane during the flight.

• Airline doors and windows are often inset a few millimetres from the fuselage so that they’ll expand to be flush with the fuselage during flight.

• If you look closely at the top of jet airliners wings, you’ll probably find a row of small metal tabs standing about one inch (2.5cm) tall, especially in front of the ailerons. These are vortex generators, which actually help the air follow the shape of the wing during flight by creating tiny whirlwinds over the wing. You can sometimes find vortex generators on the tail and in front of the rudder, too.

• Each engine on a Boeing 747 weighs almost 9,500 pounds (4,300 kg), costs about $8 million, and burns about 12 gallons of fuel per minute when cruising. Altogether the four engines account for about five per cent of the total weight of a full 747 upon takeoff.

• Even if you strapped on giant wings, you could never fly because the human heart can’t pump blood quick enough to satisfy the enormous strain of flapping. When flying, a sparrow’s heart pumps more than 450 times each minute!

• The windows in an airport control tower must be tilted out at exactly 15 degrees from the vertical to minimise reflections from both inside and outside the control tower.

• Cathay Pacific aircraft are equipped with toasters, cappuccino makers, rice cookers and skillets.

• A KLM 747-400 flight from Amsterdam to Australia carries an average of just over 1,000 kilogrammes of food, and some 1,324 litres of beverages.

• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by removing one olive from each salad served in first class.

• Virgin Atlantic says catering is its third biggest cost after fuel and engineering-maintenance.

• KLM is the world’s oldest airline established in 1919.

Chris

[Dematic24224041]

Some facts about the L-1011:

-There are (were) over 700,000 rivets, 580,000 fasteners, and 5,000 steel fasteners used in TriStar construction.

-Nearly a mile of hydraulic tubing carries fluid to activate the TriStar's flight controls, gear & doors, nose wheel steering, brakes, etc.

-14,000+ companies in 45 states & five countries participated in the TriStar building program.

-The electrical systems contained enough wire to stretch 100 miles (160 km) and is able to generate enough electricity to serve the needs of 170 single family homes.

[Dematic24224041]

Some facts about the Concorde:

During one of Concorde proving flights, an Air France Concorde took-off from Boston to Paris at the same time as one of the companys 747s from Paris heading the opposite way.
The Concorde passed the 747 over the Atlantic having covered 1,800 miles more. It landed in Paris to re-fuel for the return to Boston and then overtook the slower jumbo jet for a second time over the Atlantic and landed in Boston 11 minutes before the 747!

[dundrum]

Some facts about the Concorde:

During one of Concorde proving flights, an Air France Concorde took-off from Boston to Paris at the same time as one of the companys 747s from Paris heading the opposite way.
The Concorde passed the 747 over the Atlantic having covered 1,800 miles more. It landed in Paris to re-fuel for the return to Boston and then overtook the slower jumbo jet for a second time over the Atlantic and landed in Boston 11 minutes before the 747!

Thats excellent.......kinda like the SOCA flights 

[Dematic24224041]

Hay every one got some more facts for you 

 The world's record for consecutive loops in an airplane - 2368 - was set in 1986 by David Childs in a specially designed aerobatic aircraft.

 National Geographic exlporer Mike Fay reports that many Africans in small villages (few of whom have ever flown) have a word for the human - made objects that they occasionally see flying overhead. The call them Boeings.

 The brakes on a jet airliner can take forty - five minutes to cool down after landing. And while jets do have parking brakes, the normal brakes cool down faster when the parking brakes are turned off, so to keep the plane in place at the gate, the ground crew uses triangular chocks in front and back of the nose wheels.

 If everyone in an airplane jumped into the air at the same time, would the plane get lighter? In fact, the opposite is true. Because of a basic law of physics, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so if you jump into the air, you actually force the airplane downward a little bit, thereby increasing its weight momentarily.

 The Boeing 747-400 can carry more than its own weight. Empty, it weighs close to 200 tons, and it can carry more than 235 tons of cargo, passengers and fuel on top of that. Total maximum weight is 875,000 pounds (about 437 tons or 400,000 kg), though it must burn off enough fuel during flight so that it ways less than 652,000 punds (about 325 tons or 296,000 kg) for a safe landing.

 To withstand the landing weight of a fully laden jumbo jet (more than 900,000 pounds) commercial airport runways are between two and four feet thick, typically with various layers of ashphalt. Taxiways are often less thick, perhaps eighteen inches of concrete. It took over 2.5 million cubic yards of concrete to build Denver International airport's five 12,000 - foot runways, plus taxiways.

 

[dundrum]

It was on this day 2nd of March 1969,  that Concorde made its maiden flight.

[Dematic24224041]

Some more Concorde facts 

Concorde crew:
There have been more US astronauts than BA Concorde pilots.
Each flight consisted of the pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer and six cabin crew.
In 1993, Barbara Harmer, a former hairdresser from Bognor Regis, became Concorde's first female pilot.
British Airways limited their cabin crew to a maximum of three years' service to allow as many people as possible the chance to work on Concorde.
Pilots wanting to fly Concorde had to complete an intensive six month conversion programme consisting of a six week technical course, nineteen weeks on the simulator, route briefing and route flying training.

Technical:
Concorde took off at 220 knots (c.253mph), 55 knots (c.63mph) faster than most planes.
Dimensions:
Length: 203ft 9 ins (62.1m)
Wingspan: 83ft 8 ins (25.5m)
Height: 37ft 1 ins (11.3m).
Only twenty Concordes were ever built. They were owned exclusively by British Airways and Air France.
The needle shaped nose helped to penetrate the air. It was tilted down at take-off and landing to allow the pilots to see the runway. The nose tip could reach a temperature of 127 degrees Celsius – this was due to the friction of the air at high speed.
Concorde guzzled a staggering 25,629 litres of fuel per hour which led to protests about the environmental impact and noise pollution of the aircraft.

[dundrum]

The average commercial airliner is 231 feel long. If all the commercial airliners in the world were lined up end-to-end, you would be at O'Hare.

Glenn.

[C-Dove]

lol

[Smithy]

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, registration F-BTSC, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members on board the flight, and four people on the ground. It was the only fatal incident involving Concorde

[dundrum]

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, registration F-BTSC, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew members on board the flight, and four people on the ground. It was the only fatal incident involving Concorde

Was a shame, especially as it was caused by another plane losing its parts on the runway......apart from that I don't think any other aircraft had the same safety record, 1 crash in over 30 years flying.

Glenn.

[Chas_Smash]

...another one for the Concorde:

During the super-sonic flight the exterior fuselage heated up to 100°C resulting in stretching the whole fuselage by 15cm in length.

In the cockpit you could put a hand into the gap between two modules. The gap would disappear towards landing.

Rumour has it that the last pilots to fly the Concorde put their pilot-caps into the gap for permanent remain to honour the great aircraft


Edit: found the picture see here...

[dundrum]

Nice find Chas...........

...........Also, The Concorde was never allowed to fly overland while breaking the sound barrier, because of the sonic boom.Only one time was it allowed to do so was when it was breaking the around the world speed record when Canadian authorities allowed it to fly over the Canadian interior at speed.

Example of Concorde sonic boom (best played loud)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=annkM6z1-FE

[dundrum]

On this day 3rd of March 2005   

Steve Fossett had become the first person to fly a plane solo, non-stop around the globe without refuelling.



......rumour has it he then applied for SKA........

[Dematic24224041]

Some facts about the Boeing 777

The first 777 entered service on June 7, 1995. Since then 777s have flown more than 1.25 million flights.

There are 3 million parts in a 777 provided by more than 900 suppliers.

On Feb. 15, 1996, the 777 was named winner of the prestigious Robert J. Collier Trophy by the U.S. National Aeronautic Association. The award honored the Boeing 777 as the top aeronautical achievement of 1995.

The 777 is capable of cruising at altitudes up to 43,100 feet.

Boeing engineers designed and electronically pre-assembled the 777 using computers. New laboratory facilities enabled the various airplane systems to be tested together as a single integrated entity in simulated flight conditions, before the first jetliner took to the air.

The 777's landing gear is the largest ever incorporated into a commercial jetliner. With six wheels on each main landing gear, and two wheels on the nose gear, it has an unmistakable footprint.

The Industrial Designer's Society of America presented its Industrial Design Excellence award in1992 for the 777-passenger cabin, and in 1993 for the 777's flight deck design.

The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale recognized the Boeing 777 in April 1997 for achieving a speed and distance record for airplanes in its size and class. The 777 set the "Great Circle Distance Without Landing" record, traveling 10,823 nautical miles (20,044 kilometers), and it set the record for "Speed Around the World, Eastbound," traveling at an average speed of 553 mph (889 kilometers per hour).

The 777-200LR (longer range) was named in 2000 to Popular Science magazine's top 100 list.

The 777 is named in a song by Dire Straits Mark's Knopfler. The song is contained on the CD, "Sailing to Philadelphia."

The 777 is the first airplane to have a rose named after it. The rose is deep purple-red with a citrus-like fragrance. It was developed by Olympia, Wash., Western Independent Nurseries.

On May 30, 1995, the 777 became the first airplane in aviation history to earn U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to fly extended-range twin-engine operations (ETOPS) at entry into service. On that date, the FAA awarded the Pratt & Whitney-powered Boeing 777, 180-minute ETOPS.

The 777 under went the most extensive flight-test program ever conducted on a commercial jetliner. The flight-test program included nine airplanes, which flew more than 7,000 hours and 4,900 flights.

The data shared and transferred on the network during the design phase of the 777 program totaled 1,847,930,000,000 bytes of production data. If you collected the equivalent of all this data on 3.5-inch diskettes the stack of these diskettes would be 13,368 feet (4,074.5 meters), which is taller than Mt. Fuji in Japan, which stands 12,338 feet (3760.6 meters).

Today's 777 operators enjoy a 99 percent dispatch reliability rate.

The flight control system for the 777 airplane is different from those on other Boeing airplane designs. Rather than have the airplane rely on cables to move the ailerons, elevator, and rudder, Boeing designed the 777 with fly-by-wire technology. As a result, the 777 uses wires to carry electrical signals from the pilot control wheel, column, and pedals to a primary flight computer.

There is approximately 50,000 cubic feet of volume in a 777-300, and 40,000 cubic feet in a 777-200.

A lightly loaded 777 can accelerate from zero to 60 mph (96 kilometers per hour) in less than six seconds.