10 Quirks Of Airbus & Boeing Jets Explained

almost every aircraft out there has something that makes it unique and special some of these are easy to spot and a visual identifiers of a particular aircraft while others are performance related and might only be experienced by pilots and crews in today's video we'll go over 10 different quirks of various airbus and boeing jets that you may not know about especially if you haven't yet checked out our main simple flying channel are you ready let's begin number one the eyebrow windows on some boeing 737s if you look above the cockpit windows on the boeing 737 you may see an extra set of smaller thinner windows these are eyebrow windows and were once a useful addition for aircraft navigation and maneuvering advances in technology have seen them phased out but you can still see them in place on some older aircraft installed on up until the early 2000s these eyebrow windows were a common appearance on early boeing and douglas aircraft including the boeing 707 and 727 the main use of these windows was to aid visibility outside the cockpit allowing for extra visibility during turns particularly tight turns when approaching airports with advances in technology eyebrow windows started to become less useful navigation of course now is computer and satellite aided rather than visual and whilst clear vision is always going to be important advances such as improved instrument landing systems and traffic collision avoidance systems made them less necessary number two the mask around the windscreens of newer airbus jets sticking close to the cockpit one of the most distinctive aspects of the new airbus aircraft is the black mask or visor around the windshield starting from the a350 new models like the a330 neo and a321lr and beyond have featured this while the dark outline certainly looks striking and unique the reason for having it is not just aesthetic according to airbus the emblematic sunglasses like black windshield eases the windows maintenance and contributes to harmonizing the thermal condition of this temperature sensitive window area put simply this means the black color adjusts better to the temperatures surrounding the aircraft planes routinely go through rapid temperature changes taking off from hot airports in the cold atmosphere and all parts must adjust to this change as far as we can tell however similar designs on boeing jets that are part of the liveries of air canada and northern pacific are purely aesthetic they look good though right number three the a330 200 freighters nose gear lump the a330 200 f has a rather unusual feature a blister-like lump just forward of the nose gear to explain its presence it's important to know that the freighter was never designed from the ground up to be a cargo plane and so it required some modifications to make it suitable for the role the passenger carrying a330 200 entered into service with canada 3000 in 1998 four years after its larger brother the a330 300 began flying commercially it was more than 10 years before the freighter took its first flight ahead of entry into service in 2010 the nose down pitch of the a330 family something it shares with the a340 meant it was impossible to achieve a level cabin floor something that was essential as a cargo jet to overcome this issue airbus was forced to redesign the landing gear for the freighter variant flight global notes that the manufacturer studied several options for this fix including adding a longer nose gear leg that articulated to fit into the existing bay profile however this would have affected the commonality with the passenger fleet something that has long been a big selling point for airbus so in the end it settled on lowering the leg attachment points to raise the nose slightly when the aircraft was parked this modification required a larger gear bay to house the nose gear which required some additional housing and hence the bulge number four the boeing 737's uncovered wheels if you look at the underside of the boeing 737 shortly after takeoff or in flight you will see that the main landing gear wheels sit exposed after folding into their housing on most other aircraft it's covered by closing doors this related to a design issue that dates back to the first 737-100 introduced in 1968. the aircraft was designed to be low to the ground the choice to make the 737 more usable at smaller regional or remote airports keeping the aircraft lower to the ground would make it much easier to load passengers and cargo and also to service and fuel the aircraft with limited equipment but with the fuselage kept lower to the ground there was no room for landing gear doors these require extra clearance when operated and could come into contact with the ground removing the doors though was not necessarily a bad thing it is one less mechanical item to be repaired and maintained and it reduced the overall weight of the aircraft and freed up vital space in the belly of the aircraft adapted to their high altitude exposure the wheels have smooth hubcaps on the external facing side which aids aircraft aerodynamics there is also a rubber seal around the fuselage opening which helps prevent any objects or water entering the landing gear enclosure number five the boeing 787s curved wings one of the types most iconic features the swept back nature of the boeing 787s curved wings results in the aircraft having what are known as raked wingtips this also functions as an alternative option to winglets and contributes to increases in both fuel efficiency and consequently operational range there's also a reduction in vortices that develop at the tips of the wings boeing also notes that the use of composite materials in the wing structure allows the 787 wing to have a higher aspect ratio than previous aircraft the result of these various features is something of a perfect combination for the dreamliner's operators due to its abundance of technology it can fly faster than its predecessors while consuming less fuel number six the serrated engine covers on some boeing jets in addition to acoustic liners boeing says that these chevrons are such effective noise suppressors that several hundred pounds of sound insulation may be eliminated from the fuselage the reduced weight translates to greater operational efficiency for airlines a 2005 boeing frontiers article discusses this feature saying to combat the sound of jet blast from the rear of the engine boeing general electric and nasa developed serrated edges called chevrons for the back of the nasal and the engine exhaust nozzle chevron's reduced jet blast noise by controlling the way the air mixes after passing through and around the engine it looks to be a useful feature but on the other side why don't airbus jets have them on the one hand it appears that boeing is the holder of the patent for part of this design or a variant of it however an interesting message thread on stack exchange shows a 2006 flight global article stating that the chief engineer for the airbus a350 decided against chevron's apparently the team didn't get a noise advantage from this design combined with a specific fuel consumption penalty the aircraft designers decided not to adopt them with improvements in noise insulation technology it might explain their absence on the upcoming boeing triple seven x as well number seven the non-circular shape of boeing 737 engines you may or may not have noticed that modern generation 737 engines have engine casings where the bottom flattens out rather than continuing around the same circumference to complete a circular shape as engine technology improved engineers discover that the more air an engine could suck in the more efficient its operation will be for an increased air intake engines need larger turbines powered by larger fans these require a suitably large engine casing to fit however it was quickly discovered that larger and more efficient engines wouldn't fit with the 737s low to the ground design engineers looking at the aircraft realized that the engine's casing rather than the size of the power plants as a whole could be modified as such they needed to find a shape that was not purely circular this would prevent the engines from hitting the ground even if they were larger than previous models number eight the absence of reverse thrust on two of the a380s engines when the a380 was first designed there was a debate about whether the plane would feature reverse thrust at all these super jumbos are designed to come to a complete stop using their brakes alone ultimately the decision was made to put reverse thrust on two engines to help minimize the risk of aquaplaning but it was also decided that reverse thrust on all four of the a380 engines was definitely overkill so the first reason why the a380 only has reverse thrust on two inside engines is because that's all it needs further reverse thrust is surplus to requirements and simply adds to the plane's overall weight and puts more stress on the wing structures in fact adding reverse thrust to a single a380 engine adds half a tonne of weight to the plane given a fully loaded a380 weighs up to one million 265 000 pounds and is already expensive to operate no one is in a hurry to load the aircraft up with more weight than necessary number nine the barking dog noise on certain airbus jets passengers on the a320 and a330 can expect to hear a barking noise emanating from the plane at some point during their flight this noise which has also been likened to a buzzsaw is actually caused by a hydraulic pump which is referred to as the power transfer unit or ptu the location of the ptu means that the barking dog sound is most likely to be audible for those seated in proximity to the wings of the aircraft but it is loud enough that often others in less adjacent seats can also hear it as well unusually for a pump system most of which are powered electrically the ptu is hydraulically powered the purpose of the system is to ensure that minimum pressure is maintained across the hydraulic systems of the aircraft this system produces the quote-on-quote barking dog noise that is associated with certain airbus jets number 10 toilets in the cargo hold of some a340s the airbus a340 600 has a massive amount of space both in the main passenger cabin and below it in the cargo hold with all that space in the cargo hold lufthansa was faced with a choice when selecting options for its larger a340s it could try to fill up the jets with cargo for each flight and potentially leave with space that it can't sell or move the toilets downstairs and place more economy class seats where lavatories could have been lufthansa chose the latter and relocated the toilets downstairs thereby increasing the number of passengers on board the aircraft more than just toilets this downstairs section also accommodates an extra galley for food and beverages carts loaded on the lower level are moved up using a small elevator we hope you've enjoyed this little compilation and explanation of various aircraft features what is your favorite quirk on a commercial aircraft share it with us by leaving a comment in addition to our daily youtube videos simple flying publishes over 150 articles and a podcast every week if you're looking for the latest aviation news and insights visit simpleflying.com thanks for watching and don't forget to like and subscribe before you go

Channel: Long Haul by Simple Flying

Views: 334,542

Keywords: aviation, flying, flight, boeing, airbus, planes, aircraft, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777, 777x, a320, a321, airbus a380, a380, airports, american airlines, united airlines, delta airlines, british airways

Id: iMMKqag6s_8

Length: 13min 35sec (815 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 27 2021