Why 787 has no winglets

Airbus has had fly -by-wire longer, but Boeing has been around longer. The has more powerful engines, but the A has twice as many. The A variants generally have a better range than their counterparts, but the beats the A on MTOW. Many modern passenger jets can flex their wings nearly 90 degrees in a test rig.

The plane's wings received loads of up to 1. Aircraft wings can flex much more than most people realize. During testing, the Boeing wings flexed 26 feet upward before failing. Wing flex is also to increase the aerodynamics of the plane. Wing flexes produce more lift because of their flexibility which actually allows more lift to generate.

Wing flex acts as flaps but isn't, wing flexes can also support thousands of pounds and lift them with ease because of the lift it generates. Pilots at US carriers can work up to hours per month and up to 1, hours per year, though in practice most pilots are going to fly closer to hours per year.

Why doesn't the have winglets? Asked by: Alessia Kessler Sr. Is the Boeing a success? Is the a Dreamliner? What is the problem with Dreamliner engines? Do winglets increase lift? What is the difference between winglets and Sharklets? Do all airplanes have winglets?

What is wrong with the Trent engines? What is so special about Boeing Dreamliner? Why is it called a Dreamliner? How many hours can a fly? Airbus A winglet. Winglets have been understood since the beginnings of aviation.

In fact an Englishman, Frederick W. Lanchester described them in before the Wright Brothers had even taken flight. Like many great pioneers of his time, Lanchester looked to birds for inspiration. He noted that soaring eagles had splayed upturned feathers at their wingtips and he incorporated this into his designs for model gliders.

Find out more about this fascinating and unsung hero of aerodynamics. Winglets give aircraft a performance improvement of anything between five and seven percent. They do that by reducing the powerful vortexes that curl out behind the wingtip as the aircraft slices through the air.

These occur when low-pressure air flowing over the wing and the high pressure flowing under the wing meet at the tip. The vortexes create drag, slowing the aircraft down and need to be countered with increased thrust and therefore more fuel burn.

With clever aeronautical design —— and it is really complicated —— winglets can change and drastically reduce the vortex, so the aircraft needs less thrust to maintain the same speed.

Apart from some small wing tip plates seen on military aircraft during the wars, the first time the winglet appeared was on an enthusiasts aircraft called the Rutan VariEze in This was designed by our friend and Virgin Galactic founder Burt Rutan. A legendary aircraft designer, Burt is known for designing extremely efficient and sometimes unusual looking aircraft. The next stage in the winglet story came in the executive jet sector when they appeared on the Learjet 28 in What makes the Boeing Dreamliner so different is that it does not have winglets because it was a clean sheet design.

Unlike some older aircraft with winglets added to them in the early s, the Boeing was a revolutionary design built using many new materials and modern technologies.

When they designed the Boeing Dreamliner, Boeing came up with a raked wingtip design. The raked wingtip design also allows the to use less runway on takeoff and achieve a steeper climb rate. While standard wingtips can reduce drag by as much as 4. Despite the one percent increase, raked wingtips only work on larger aircraft and are much less economical on smaller planes like the Boeing or Airbus A This not only allows the plane to fly faster and further than less advanced aircraft; it also makes for a smoother flight as the flexibility helps dampen movement from wind gusts and turbulence.