747 - a number you will have a hard time believing!

[I Ratant]

You cannot control your negative G intolerance - you might drug yourself out of it and exposure will help but there are many who are simply unable to fly in certain conditions.

I also fly sailplanes and as a pilot you should know that a passenger in a sailplanes lacks nothing in "unwilling to learn" category.
Some cannot tolerate negative G well and if you happen to be flying front seat...that can be a messy lesson - even with pre-flight ginger I'd hand out.

.
Zero G is FUN!!!!!!
During stall testing in the L-1011...
The guy sitting at the desk was unhappy, but Gene was having fun..
And my boss during a round-over after a stall... Just about everyone would take advantage .. although one of the guys would lie in floor at the c.g. and not be delighted when I would be leaping past him.

 

[CORed]

Fond memories.

My first trip on a 747 was way back in coach in the middle 4 seats. You had me on the right aisle, some american on the left aisle and a married elder couple in the middle two seats.

On approach to SFO, a storm was happening and one runway was shut down, so we sit in a holding pattern for an hour in a frakkin storm. I paid it no heed, until I noticed my american compadre at the other end of the row of four seats literally hanging out of his seat into the aisle. Noticing my puzzled stare, he said "Hey, if you look down the aisle, you can see the whole plane flexing". Really? I thought. So I did the very same on the right aisle. Sure enough you could, so I sat back up straight and looked across at my new found compadre and said "yeah, how cool is that?". At this point, the two firstimers between us, listening to this conversation passing over their laps, invested themselves in sickbags. Compadre and I continued to lean out in the aisles and observe. It was moot whether it was to observe the obvious flexure, or avoid the vomiting pair between us.

So what is my point? It is threefold.

1. While I found it interesting to observe, others found it scary.
2. Those who found it scary are utterly unwilling to learn anything.
3. In all things aerial, common sense does not apply. Science does.

I've never flown on a 747. However, I did once fly on a DC-10, and noticed that the flexing of the body of the plane was visible when going through some turbulence. I didn't have any conversation about it. I found it fascinating, and TBH, a little bit scary.

 

[abaddon]

I've never flown on a 747. However, I did once fly on a DC-10, and noticed that the flexing of the body of the plane was visible when going through some turbulence. I didn't have any conversation about it. I found it fascinating, and TBH, a little bit scary.

Ok. Here's the thing. The flexure is intentionally designed into the aircraft. If it were rigid, the aircraft would fall apart. The visible flexing of the structure is the reason why it does not, so you should not be scared rather you should be glad of it.

Here is a B77 wing flexure test. They had a max expected load which they hoped to exceed by 150% and in the event the wing reached 154% of max design load before failing. And boy was it flexed at that point.

 

[I Ratant]

Ok. Here's the thing. The flexure is intentionally designed into the aircraft. If it were rigid, the aircraft would fall apart. The visible flexing of the structure is the reason why it does not, so you should not be scared rather you should be glad of it.

Here is a B77 wing flexure test. They had a max expected load which they hoped to exceed by 150% and in the event the wing reached 154% of max design load before failing. And boy was it flexed at that point.

.
Those failures tend to be very noticeable! The test wing on the Tristar broke at over 150% load, and the entire building it was in shook! Popped as very large chunk out of the upper wing skin over the locaton where the engine pylon would be!

 

[I Ratant]

The wrinkles in the upper wing skin before failure remind of seeing ripples like that on the wing of a VickersViscount! These though were a design "feature" of the rib-span-skin construction of the wing, which didn't use the one-piece milled slab skin like that on most planes today.

 

[abaddon]

.
Those failures tend to be very noticeable! The test wing on the Tristar broke at over 150% load, and the entire building it was in shook! Popped as very large chunk out of the upper wing skin over the locaton where the engine pylon would be!

I bet. I still find it astonishing to see it bend that much and hold. Testament to the engineers, but I can see how it might seem odd to people.

 

[macdoc]

Ever seen a 17m sailplane wing flex....talk about scary.


Fully aerobatic, high gee, enough to black me out on a loop.
Airliners got nuthin'