Jon wrote: > > With that said, I'd be careful about claiming "ditchworthiness". >
John Denker replied: > It *is* something they design for. It's required by the FARs. In words, sure. In designing for efficiency, revenue, robustness, etc. and "ditchworthiness", I don't believe you can design for the same level of expectations and repeatability, for ditching. Conditions and results for ditching seem to me to be so wildly different and unpredictable, and have a small margin of error. > Newer aircraft are better at it than older aircraft. And that's > not a fluke or any kind of "miracle". It's something they design > for. You are simply asserting what aircraft manufacturers are *supposed* to do. The ditching instructions are so clear in the short information card that passengers are told to read, but those instructions are for a wildly optimistic outcome. Even in pristine water conditions, I would think that the landing must be precise. I'd like to know how manufacturers test an aircraft for water ditching performance, in all sorts of conditions. How can the manufacturer prove they meet the FAR requirements? What are those, specifically? > Boats that hit the water at 110+ knots? What kind of boat hulls > are those? Gotta get me one of them! :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go-fast_boat http://www.cigaretteracing.com/ The issue is that there are fewer seams. I don't have any proof that composite aircraft hulls would be better, but it seems intuitive to me that they would hold together better. Jon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by: SourcForge Community SourceForge wants to tell your story. http://p.sf.net/sfu/sf-spreadtheword _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/flightgear-devel
