Why Boeing Has Winglets And Airbus Has Sharklets 

Fun fact: as soon as any aircraft crosses into Australian airspace, they are automatically called sharklets, croc-lets, or snakelets.

Would've been nice to hear more about the design of the winglets on the Max & why they have 2 points on them instead of 1, one going downward as well as up.

Speaking of winglets, I recall the A330/A340 program initially had similar split scimitar type wingtip designs found in the A310 and A320 programs, but the A340’s engine problems forced it to have large wings just to help lift it off the ground. Since both the A330 and A340 were co-developed at the same time naturally they chose the similar polygonal wingtips found in the B747-400 in order not to screw with the aerodynamics further. The A380 was a standalone design, so it’s not subjected to compromise changes in its wingtip design.

I love the 787’s raked wingtips. That beautiful sweep when you look it from the cabin will never get old for me. Hence why i always love to sit at the very back of the mid-cabin when flying on the Dreamliner

I think the wingtip design of the A350 is among the most visually appealing. I know absolutely nil about physics. To me, it's all about aircraft appearance. Perhaps I'm shallow and superficial! I enjoyed this video.

I heard that 787 and 777's raked wingtips are optimized for long-haul flights (cruising), while the blended winglets of 737 (and the like) are more optimized for short-haul flights because their impact is greatest for take-offs.

The Airbus A310-300 was the first airliner with wingtip fences in 1985. Other Airbus models followed with the A300-600, the A320ceo, and the A380. Other Airbus models including the Airbus A320 Enhanced, A320neo, A350 and A330neo have blended winglets rather than wingtip fences.

Raked wingtips,the latest and greatest.. Especially on the 787.. The dihedral and graceful curves on that wing flow nicely into the wingtips..

What about the winglets Airbus used on the A330 and A340 or the Wingtip Fences they used on some A300s and A310s as well as on the A320s and A380s? Some of them came out much before 2000…

My vote for best looking winglets goes to the A350. It appears to be more integrated into the wing design compared to the 737, 757, 767, 747, A380, A330ceo, A320ceo and neo, E-series, A220, C919, MD-11, which all look like it was “tacked on”. The 787’s and 777-300ER’s raked wing ends doesn’t seem to be wingtip devices, but more like wing planform designs.

I’m fairly sure that the Airbus A310 was the first commercial jetliner to have these devices. Whilst not the same style at later versions the wing tip fences on the A310 which were then introduced on the A320-200, A300-600 and A380 all serve the same basic function. The sharklets on the A320 are basically an improved version of the fences on earlier models.

BRILLIANT explanation - THANK YOU!

The 777x and 787 ranked wingtip stands out for me, it look like an albatross 🦅

I like the raked wing tips from the 787s and the 767-400s plus the 777s.

Once I flew a modified two-seated glider plane (Twin Astir 3) that had the outer wings bent upwards by 12° according to Prof. Richard Eppler's research. The plane felt fantastic to fly and was so stable that one could take away the hand from the stick while thermalling. In the meantime, many gliders also have winglets, mostly those in classes with limited wingspan.

the 767-400ER has crazy huge winglets lol

Intreresting video !!! ❤

I thought the MD11 incorporated the winglets before the 744s 🤔🤔🤔🤔

Earlier A350s have a slightly different sharklet than later ones. How easy would it be to retrofit the latest A350 sharklets onto an earlier A350? Would it be as easy as fitting winglets onto a 737NG?

nice

I knew the inventor of the Winglet wing enhancement. It's primary purpose was to decrease the wingtip vortex, caused by the mixing of the high and low pressure airflows exiting at the tip. The Winglet introduces a countering vortex to reduce the primary, and this reduces the overall drag of the main wing, and increases efficiency.

Ironic that the Wright Brothers seemed to have studied more about air flow issues than Boeing and Airbus took a 100 years before they took a look at it. And they were bicycle makers with modest wind tunnels and no computers.

Both look good

I don’t get why Airbus hasn’t tried raked wingtips given the success Boeing has had with it. It’s good for widebodies in particular

I recall that efforts to delay and reduce tip vortices were made back in the middle of the 20th century by putting flat plates on the wing tips of some relatively small aircraft ; it was a failure . The plates increased weight and profile drag and merely formed a core for the vortices. Since aircraft of the time had a lot of room for improving profile drag it took a decade or 2 to revitalise the subject. As stated, In cruise a tip vortex is created by air spilling horizontally off the under wing tip instead of being defllected down from the trailing edge resulting in a loss of lift. The object of any of these tip devices is to reduce this spillage and the passage of what is left into the low pressure air above the rear of the wing. In short if they can delay, or unwind , the vortex until aft of the wing then the wing can produce the same lift at a lower angle of attack reducing induced drag. The negative side is the combination of extra weight, profile drag of the device and any induced drag from redirecting airflow. Just like take off performance can be improved by loading payload near the aft C of G limit so reducing the negative lift of the tail plane at rotate the values involved are proportionately small but have long term reward. The entertaining variation in wing tip adornments is because they are fine tuning of performance ; not fundementals. It is worth remembering that the inconvenient vortices in this subject were an essential source of lift for Concorde's significantly different wing in approach configuration. Also worth remembering is that the Rutan Voyager scraped one of its similar devices off using the runway on take off but went the 24,000 mile way home to get it fixed. In appropriate conditions, it is possible to watch persistent condensation trails spiralling in the vortices produced by wings 3 or 4 miles behind the aircraft where the large diameter is no longer related to the tips of the wings but the weight of the aircraft. It is a pity that business politics can successfully challenge technical achievement and relevance.

Very nice homage to Pan Am... even without Winglets being exhibited here on the B747.

5:51 - 😂 You can almost imagine the narration used in a chewing gum ad... Chiclets.

Because of this video, i want to know more detail on Airbus' and Boeing's cockpit windows design difference and it's APU.. is it the same purposes as their wingtip(s)?

What’s the efficiency difference between the split scimitar type wingtip and the „regular“ winglets

Should do a video on how raked wingtips work

My favourite is the A330 ceo winglet✈️👍🏾

Me personally, I like the MD-11’s winglets

MD-11 winglets was a head of time.

it was possible to answer the video title's question in less 5 second "no different, just a marketing name" speaking of airbus's winglet i think the airbus is expected and applied winglet design since 1992 on A340/A330 similar on 747-400, but on narrow body aircrafts have a special design winglets, not only in 737 and A320 also have a similar design on Embraer E-jets and Bombardier CRJs

Would it make any difference in fuel efficiency if the horizontal stabilizers have winglets/sharklets? After all, the horizontal stabilizers could be considered some type of extra wings at the rear of the aircraft where vortices could be created as well.

That Advert was wild

The difference is Airbus didn't want to get sued after Boeing introduced the Winglets. So they had to come up with something different.

My favourite wingtip design as the one A. Bowers et al tested in 2015 at NASA. 10% lower drag for a 30% increase in span, no significant increase in bending moment and hence structural weight, and the elimination of the vertical stabiliser. I wish someone would do a feasibility study of optimising it for the transonic regime

Interesting how Boeing is named as the first to install an anti-vortex solution. Airbust had them long before.... Small but both up and down on the A310, A320 and later versions of the A300.

Why no sharklets on horizontal stabilizer and top of rudder? Must be vertexes there too

Theoretically if you flat the winglets out it'll do better, just think the long thin wing on glider (or sugar). But it'll add more wingspan and more stress in the root structure. Well, raked wingtip it's basically what that it.

It is interesting that the Boeing P8 has a raked edge versus winglets.

Check out the Spiroid Winglet technology tested on Gulfstream & Falcon corporate jets

Good info but the video did not address the downward tips on many winglets/sharklets.

How important were winglets on the B747-400?? They are on the Configuration Deviation List (CDL). The aircraft is serviceable for flight if the winglet is removed and there is no damage to the wing.

My favorite is the 737 max winglets

Don’t know why they have them but they’re cute af and all planes should have little shark fins 😊

There is a big difference between the winglets on the 737 MAX and all other airplanes in that on the MAX the airflow is fully laminar resulting in a large drag reduction.

In the Boeing side, i flown a 737NG with winglets 4 times but in Airbus, i only flown with sharklets once with an Airbus A320ceo

Israel's "Arava" had winglets back in the 1970s, and was one of the first, if not 'the', to show this feature.

I think that Boeing's winglets on the 737 have a great design, it looks really good.

Parasite drag is produced by VERTICAL surfaces and Induced drag is created by HORIZONTAL surfaces, for example when the Flaps are at 0 degrees they produce Max Induced drag and Min Parasite drag, at 90 degrees Min Induced and Max Parasite drag and at 45 degrees in the middle of both, for a flap with no thickness. The fact that Lift and drag are both proportional to airspeed squared, means airspeed affects a 2 Dimensional surface, geometrically a Square plane. Wing Vortices are not the cause of Induced Drag but it is just a Visible Effect of it. I have developed a hypothesis to explain physical, atomic and subatomic (gravitational movements, Center of Gravity and Mass), however I need to validate my V & H surfaces theory first. It seems that Winglets reduce Lift and increase Drag, I also believe in turbance Winglets impose additional stress to wings and all other moving parts inside the wings like rods, joints and moving surfaces. Wingtips also decrease the stability and controllability in turbulent air. Simply put another british scam. Please let me know what you think, thanks.

But isn't a key part of patent law, that you cannot patent a physical property that is required to achieve a specific function that is not achievable othervise?

Imagine taking a 737 from the 1980s and being able to modify it to be able to run the latest engines and retrofitting modern winglets. I wonder what the speed and performance differences of the before and after would be.

I always thought that the 1st winglets were on a Learjet.55 longhorn.

Your information is incorrect. Learjet was the first manufacturer to install winglets on their "Longhorn" wing design first installed on the model 28 in 1977 (a 25 model with the new wing). The results were good enough that the new wing was then installed on the existing tip-tank 35 model creating the 31 and since has been on every Learjet, Challenger, Global and even the company designed C-Series (Airbus A-220) model. Learjet was the manufacturer that first initiated talks with NACA to explore the wingtip vortices and the wingtip design they had developed on the "Lifting-body" vehicle they were testing prior to the space shuttle. Your saying Gulfstream was the first was wrong. Learjet had winglets long before anyone else had considered the design and was the first aircraft manufacturer to use them in production.

The winglets and sharklets has some differences. Lights are split on the sharklets while Boeing has all Lights together

Why the Airbus a320s sharklet s thinner than the b737s sharklet?

So, why do we not see some kind of winglet or more aerodynamic designs on aircraft elevators?

This article has some contradictions from an article you featured previously. “Why winglets are typically found on larger aircraft” BY DEVANSH MEHTA PUBLISHED JUN 11, 2022

Lear Jet introduced wing lets in 1977.

"The Airbus A310-300 was the first airliner with wingtip fences in 1985" according to wikipedia Weird to have a video about Winglets / Sharklets and not mention that Airbus had been using Wingtip Fences for 16 years before Boeing installed a wingtip device on a short or medium haul aircraft

Sharklets

Hmm, what about wingtips on A320ceo, A380ceo and A330ceo?

Scimitars all day.. loved when united had there whole fleet changed

They should add them to the elevators at the back 😂

Boeing acts as if they themselves didn't get the technology from NASA as a free handout...

A350 Wings is excellent

Seems to be that if NASA had a hand in it, then the design shouldn't be patented by company like that. Thought everything NASA did was considered public domain?

Airbus started using it since the A300-600

The pronunciation of AWIATOR sounds like a toddler trying to say AVIATOR

All are still called winglets at the end of thr day

Baby Shark! Do do do

The split scimitar

These winglets do very little to reduce drag. Another myth is fuel consumption. They help a TINY bit. Probably not worth the cost of engineering these things though.

At least I know what they are now

air is diff. in eu n us

Why no captions?

Just the tip. Just for a minute. Just to see how it performs.

F1 cars have winglets too🤷‍♂️

There’s nothing that comes close to the 787 wings.

The winglets reduce drag.

That was 3 years before the 747

I think the A350 is the best looking, but the 787 is close

When I retrofitted winglets to my glider my wife quite unfairly in my opinion called them Wanklets

But they were first used on a racing yacht !!!!

One lands, the other needs to be scooped off of the ground.

Answer is at 7:58 Saved you 8 minutes

Zero mention of Airbus's wingfences? The 320 had them since 1987 (1984 for the A300/310, but who's counting?), yet according to this video it's as if they never existed. smh.

Duuh, same principle as folding the nose of a paper plane

I want to be a pilot and my wing lits will be like this

Airbus fans scream foul when I call them copycats. Well here's an undisputable example.

As always sharklets are way 'better'

Worr

You're less likely to plummet to the ground in an Airbus .

If my wife is on the plane it needs 50 on search side to help fuel efficiency to offset her massive weight

UwU I'm an Awiator ✈️

Airbus copied Boeing with winglets and just called them Sharklets.

This patent stuff is just absurd. You cannot patent Whitcomb's paper. You should not be able to patent the knowledge he brought to the public domain. Yes, it looks like the same design, because it basically is. Thats aerodynamics and they knew it, it was simply a cut-throat business move. Boeing should be ashamed of themselves.

What's a "PAY-tent?" I know what a 'PAA-tent' is, but not the former. It's a SHORT 'A', not a long 'A'. Sorry, couldn't help myself. 😉✌️