It’s like that on some small military supersonic fighters that need to park on aircraft carrier ships so the space can be maximised despite the already small wing of those fighter jets
As far as I’m aware, the 777x doesn’t actuate its wingtips near any ground crew. In fact I believe it’s automated and they fold down just before take off and just after landing, allowing it to use smaller taxi ways. So it’s likely there is nobody around the aircraft at this time. Airbus would likely follow a similar design.
They can do what they like outside the USA. Airbus bothered to renew US9517834B2. They didn't bother to file the translations to get EP3000723 granted, and GB2530578 is likely to die as they didn't respond to the May 2020 exam report.
Airbus will likely use folding wingtips in the future if they make a new twin like 777X that needs a bigger wing for efficiency but they want to maintain compatibility with existing current Airbus widebody Code E aircraft.
Just like Airbus. They don't need to invent anything, just need need to copy it and claim its better. Well, a plane wing that folds in flight is still going to be a chunk of wing that is missing off your plane. Its dipping that way regardless.
@@AnotherPointOfView944 I know what Airbus says, and I also know what happens when you actually fly a plane. An aileron dips only two degrees, it can change the entire angle of the aircraft as much as thirty degrees. So when you loose ten feet worth of wing on one side of the aircraft, its going to do the exact same thing....just far worse.
All you Boeing haters stop crying like a baby !! BOEING BEAT AIRBUS TO THE STAGE AND ACTUALLY MADE A AIRPLANE WITH FOLDING WING TIPS AND WILL BE A BIG GAME CHANGER FOR YEARS TO COME !! Airbus got left in the wind sorry airbus !!
Patent!? Really? The Canadair Challenger 600 was the first aircraft to have a winglet mod done. It's not cosmetic, it actually decreases fuel consumption. Then others followed later! 😉
I doubt if Airbus will go into the big plane market like Boeing has with the B777X programme, as the A380 programme hasn't recouped its development costs. The A350-900 and A350-1000 with their variants will be it for Airbus.
Another superb video. Keep.up the good work. Btw, when will the Emirates premium economy video come out if you will upload it. Also if you have cancelled it, it's no problem. Great video
Divisions of Boeing go back to WWII and likely before putting folding wings on naval carrier aircraft so the technology is not so new. Yes downward folding wings are better if you're engineering for failure. The worse thing that would happen if a upward folding wing folded during flight is they'd need more engine power i.e. fuel to get where they were going to compensate for the lost wing area i.e lift.
I don’t think this folding wings issue is going to go anywhere. Airplanes have had folding wings since almost day one. (And more than a few have had an un commanded wing fold in flight!) I know Boeing was seriously working on folding wingtips for the first 777 because I actually saw design prototypes being tested in an engineering lab while sorting out the production design of the 777. One of the reasons for the folding design was so the 777 could fit in the existing ramp space allocated for the DC10. At the end of the day, the airlines did not choose the folding wing tip for a number of reasons. Weight, payload, cost, maintenance and customer acceptance reasons. And Boeing had its reasons for not pushing it into production at the time. And downward folding wingtips have been done before. A number of planes were developed in the 1960’s which actually folded wings down in flight for aerodynamic purposes. One of the most famous was the prototype XB-70 Valkyire supersonic bomber prototype. (2 were built and flown. 1 crashed when an escorting fighter collided with it and sliced off its vertical stabilizers. The remaining one sits in a museum.)
Airbus’ has an arguable opinion that upwardly folding wingtips are more dangerous. I think that the Airbus downward folding design are definitely more dangerous on the ground were they would easily strike ground equipment (operators)
Such as? By your reckoning Boeing copied the use of composites on modern commercial aircraft, and fly-by-wire. Wing tips, folding or otherwise, are not a Boeing invention.
The Airbus concept is completely different. It is not related to the wingspan but to improve aerodynamics in flight. Airbus wingtips will move inflight whereas the Boeing ones are locked inflight.
Folding wingtips is adding to the already excessive aircraft complexity without improving safety record and lowering cost as well. As the expression «Simple Flying» suggests aircraft manufacturer ought to design aircraft with simplicity and safety in mind rather implementing devices that compromises safety, cost ans easyness of maintenance. Pilots have to many devices to understand and operate without adding another one that one day will popp up inadvertandlly leaving them with no alternatives that trying to save their all live son board! Aircraft manufactuer should be concerned with improving safety and reliability as well as lower operating cost using the minimal amount of gadgets and extra compoents such as folding winglets which are not safety oriented and will fail or fall without any notice.
Folding wingtips do lower operating cost by saving fuel. The mechanism is just a single item required for takeoff (which is also confirmed through takeoff configuration warning, just like flaps) and has no pilot input required for landing, so it doesn't add much operating complexity at all.
Airbus did NOT get a patent "in 2014", it was in 2016 (in the US), as your screenshot plainly shows. 2014 was the "priority date". They do still not have a *UK* patent, I have seen the exam report. They haven't responded in time so probably that application will die. And the European application EP3000723 "is deemed to be withdrawn" (actually that reached grantable status but they didn't send in the translations of the claims). I would have said "they have no interest" except that they have actually bothered to pay the renewal fee for their US patent.
Truth is that there isn't really a defined wingspan limit at any airport and this aircraft will mostly operate at airports that can accept the B747 and A380 anyway. Just more and more restrictions on where and how an aircraft can operate as wingspan increases. The only real advantage the larger availability of contact stands.
@@AmbientMorality Not when they designed for 10 across seating instead of 9 across on original 777. So yes it will be 17 inch seat on 15 hours flight. Good luck
A few things I want to mention. No service vehicle should hit downwards folding wings as it is strictly forbidden to drive under the wings at all. Moreover this is now the chance to bring an A322 as a competitor for the NMA of Boeing. Still stay in the 36m wingspan category
@@pashastepashka7795 There's a lot of fuel -thus weight- in the outboard wings and a lot of lifting force acting on them in flight. The hinge and folding mechanism would need to be massively heavy and large as you're effectively cutting the wing spars. When the a/c is parked, there's a lot of extra side area for the wind to act on.
@@dirty_mac There isn't a correct way. English is a bastardized language. The current lot of English accents are recent as well. They weren't speaking in this fashion 150 years ago.
@@MarktheSharkC so I think it does not make any sense too call it copying because Boeing did not built anything back in the 90s regarding wingtips. And today they're asking suppliers to build these (and many other) parts. Which is completely normal in my opinion and I guess every airplane manufacturer does it this way...
