Why Every Plane Has to Pass This Test

this is a chicken gun it is used to test the impact of birds on airplane engines and this is the lightning lab which is used to create man-made lightning bolts and strike aircraft with them we'll talk about them in a minute but first airplanes before being rolled out for commercial use need to undergo strenuous testing procedures this makes sure the aircraft is in compliance with the rules and regulations of the faa in the u.s and the easa in the eu and the first thing they need to test are the wings manufacturers need to make sure the wings of the aircraft can withstand the most turbulent of rides we've all experienced a little wobbling in mid-air sometimes it gets so scary that we can see the plane's wings vibrating because of the powerful winds while most of us panic at this point we should point out that the wings of the aircraft are bent at a 90 degree angle while performing so-called static tests for example when boeing was getting ready to roll out their 777 models for commercial use they wanted the whole world to see just how durable the plane's wings were they started increasing the limit load on the wings and after 150 percent you could see everyone was cringing at the possibility of a powerful snap sound during testing that thunderous kaboom didn't come until they reached 154 percent of the designed limit load on the wings at which point this happened just listening similarly when airbus a350 xwb was testing their new planes wings at the end of 2013 they subjected the wings to loads 1.5 times what they would encounter in service at this point the wings smash that like button just like you should if you haven't done so already but no in all seriousness the wings were up to 16 feet 5 meters from where they would originally stand this meant that the wings of the a350xwb went up almost 90 degrees and of course the testing can't stop there just like boeing did while testing their 777 airbus also had to test the breaking point of the wings the pilots need to know the level of load at which the wings could snap off the aircraft the engines on modern day aircraft are so powerful that nothing can escape the powerful vacuum they create when activated and yes geese doves pigeons or anything in between can and usually will get sucked into the engine of the aircraft in mid-flight since the first recorded death of aviation pioneer cal rogers in 1912 the number of people that have died from a bird getting sucked into the engine is one for every 1 billion hours flown however this doesn't mean that birds can't deal heavy damage to airplane engines even though modern turbo fans are well suited to withstand a bird strike the damage they cause to aircraft on a yearly basis is estimated to be around 1.2 billion dollars this is why aircraft manufacturers need to take this into consideration when testing out the engines we all remember how in 2009 on january 15 the airbus a320 operated by u.s airways collided with a flock of geese after this the plane had no engines and it was forced to land in the hudson river with all 155 crew and passengers getting out alive so in order to test the aircraft's ability to withstand a bird collision they build a chicken gun the gun is compromised of a tube with a large diameter and uses compressed air to launch the chicken carcasses that would be loaded inside so from a safe distance one worker would load aim and fire the chicken into the working engine and see how the turbo fan will cope with the quote-unquote attack the second thing that can cause engine failure is excess water these are called water ingestion tests this could refer to aircraft taxiing through artificially created water troughs or it could mean a powerful stream of water being fed inside the operating engine for example general electric tests its gen x engines by placing a pump that fires 800 gallons of water inside the engines every single minute if the water passes through the engine and doesn't reduce its thrust then we can safely say that the engine passed the test this means the turbofan can withstand even the most tumultuous rainstorms the third test is an engine that has to go through the possibility of a blown out blade from the turbofan manufacturers are building engines with casings capable of diffusing the impact of the blade when performing the test they'll take a differently colored fan blade attach it to the fan in the front and then add some explosives to the base of the blade while the engine is running they'll detonate the explosive and this will send the blade flying inside the engine dealing heavy damage even though the engine will be utterly wrecked the important thing is to make sure no parts come flying out of the engine cowling if everything remains inside even if the engine cuts out it's considered a successful test at cardiff university airbus is testing their aircraft by conducting what's called a lightning test since there are thousands of commercial planes hit by lightning every year on aluminum planes this is not a problem since the conductivity of the material will disperse the energy of the powerful lightning bolt throughout the entire body of the aircraft but modern planes work a little differently some of them have lots of parts built with carbon fiber which makes them much lighter and stronger and leads to a 25 reduction in fuel consumption however there is a catch carbon fiber doesn't conduct electricity as well as aluminum so a lightning strike could be disastrous at the cardiff lightning lab as they call it they're trying to simulate the conductivity of aluminum aircraft by coating the carbon fiber body with a thin layer of metal to see how this would stand up to a lightning test they create virtual lightning strikes and aim them at the plane if the plane's carbon fiber parts survive they'll send the aircraft out to production the hot and cold tests are another crucial part that need to be addressed before the airplane can be deemed safe and this is why airbus takes their planes to iqaluit in the nunavut territory in northern canada temperatures in this frozen city reach around negative 18 degrees fahrenheit or negative 28 degrees celsius once there the aircraft will have a week of tests where they'll fly the plane in sub-zero temperatures in the air and on the ground then they'll perform thrust reverser or tr tests with snow this will have the same effect as unexpected braking which is something planes have to deal with during an aborted takeoff after all of this the aircraft is ready to perform rigorous takeoff and landing procedures take for example this boeing 747-8 the first test includes dragging the tail of the aircraft on the runway it's called velocity minimum unstick test and they used this test to see what the lowest speed would be for this freighter to take off to achieve this the pilot needs to exert force in order to get the airplane's tail to drag on the runway however they also have to be gentle if not they could destroy the tail of the aircraft when dragging it on the runway once in the sky the plane is monitored during stall testing the pilots deliberately stall the aircraft in mid-flight just so they can make sure the aircraft can recover when landing they also do a ground effects test this is when the boeing 747-8 is practically hovering over the runway this test aims at observing the aerodynamic effects when the aircraft is flying so close to the ground no one cares about the black box on a flight that goes perfectly fine but if anything were to go wrong in the air the first thing everyone wants to look at is the black box which contains two vital pieces of equipment the first one is called the flight data recorder and the second one is the cockpit voice recorder the latter contains audio recordings of the last 30 minutes of conversation in the cockpit before any incident in the case of a plane crash this recorded audio could give crucial information that could help investigators solve an unexplained crash the moment a black box comes into contact with water it will activate a beacon this beacon is called the elt or emergency locator transmitter the beacon will send out a signal every second for the first 30 days obviously to survive a crash and start sending out signals the black box needs to undergo strenuous testing before going on an aircraft just like all the testing that the aircraft went through the black box needs to prove it can withstand an impact that's 3500 times its own weight so how do you build something this durable well the orange shell is built from one quarter of an inch stainless steel inside there's an aluminum housing insulated by fireproof materials that are one inch thick the motherboard is then inserted and bicarbonate of soda is poured inside to absorb heat and now with everything locked in place it's time for testing first they place the black box on its side then they put a hardened steel pin on it usually a rockwell 42 and then drops a 500 pound metal weight from a height of 10 feet if it withstands this test it's time for test number two this test is where the black box needs to prove that the inside data will stay intact even if the aircraft's fuel engulfs it and incinerates everything on board this is why they test it by subjecting it to a one hour high temperature fire test all of that fire insulation held up well and the microchips are still intact incidentally the so-called black box is not black it's actually orange the nickname black box is a british phrase that came from world war ii during the development and origination of radio radar and electronic navigational aids in british and allied combat aircraft these at one time top secret electronic devices were encased in non-reflective black boxes or housings and that's where the nickname black box came from bye for now

Channel: Beyond Facts

Views: 16,923

Keywords: airplane crash, airplanes, aviation, beyond facts, beyond facts planes, jet crash test, jet engine crash test, jumbo jet crash test, pilot, plane brake test, plane crash test, plane crash test documentary, plane crash test into wall, plane crash test wall, plane engine crash test, plane test, plane test crash, plane test crash into wall, plane test flight, testing plane engines, testing plane wings, why every plane has to pass this level, why every plane has to pass this test

Id: Dq8mnk_M7PY

Length: 9min 43sec (583 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022