Musings.

"Spanfeller is a twat" (theaspiringengineer) 08/21/2019 at 20:52 • Filed to: None

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Having class with the industrial engineering students at my college is like going through purgatory in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Even in a relatively basic class about manufacturing techniques.

Not to pretend I’m better than them , I know nothing of human resources, or like the other business administration courses they take and focus more on.

Teacher: Do any of you know how wings are attached to the fuselage of airplanes?

I.E.: Riveted?

*teacher sighs*

Other industrials: Ah yes, riveted... of course.

Me: what do you mean rivets?

I.E. : Yeah, like, wings, they’re full of rivets.

Me: Yes, of course. On the fucking surface that is.

facw > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 20:59

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I don’t actually know, but I’m guessing bolts that cost 100-1000x what an identical non-aviation certified bolt costs .

TheTurbochargedSquirrel > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:00

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What do you mean planes aren’t made of canvas and balsa wood?

CB > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:01

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“They’re put on as cheap as possible and put passengers at risk!”

-Corporate Criminology

Spanfeller is a twat > facw 08/21/2019 at 21:03

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It varies... But the wing spars are connected to the wing box, sometimes with complex shear joints and bolts. You don’t fucking rivet the thing on the surface!

Spanfeller is a twat > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 08/21/2019 at 21:04

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I don’t think any airliners currently operating use that technology.

jimz > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:08

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apparently part of being an engineer is assuming you know everything about everything in the engineering field, whether or not it’s outside your expertise. I know far too many mechanical/electrical engineers who seem to think they’re qualified to talk authoritatively on stuff like politics, climate change, what have you.

meanwhile, I (a simple mechanical engineer with 20 years experience) think I’ve accomplished something by designing a circuit board to take binary-coded-decimal and translate that to a 7-segment display.

and I still think it’s magic.

ttyymmnn > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:08

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As part of my doctorate in music, I had to take a language class. We didn’t have to do any speaking or writing , we just had to be able to translate passages from books. Most of the people in the class were grad students who were taking the class because we had to, but there were a few foreign language majors who were  also taking the class because they had to, and they were always interrupting to ask questions and argue about conjugations and declensions and all this esoteric foreign language bullshit while the rest of us were just thinking, “Oh shut the fuck up and get on with it.”

WilliamsSW > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:09

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I blame the teacher. He/ She should have specified whether they were talking about the skin or the structure ( and yes I know the skin is structural for the pedants).

- signed, an IE

WilliamsSW > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:09

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Also that’s an awesome photo. Very bendy

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > facw 08/21/2019 at 21:10

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Speaking of aircraft bolts, How It’s Made did aviation rated bolts last week. They didn’t mention an exact price difference, but I bet it is spectacular . The threads were forged instead of cut, and a full dimensional QC analysis was done on every single fastener .

WilliamsSW > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 08/21/2019 at 21:11

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The good airplanes are 

SiennaMan > TheTurbochargedSquirrel 08/21/2019 at 21:16

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My first thought was that balsa wood and canvas would be “the 2CV of air travel”..

 Actually,  the Model A Ford is probably a better analogy..

Spanfeller is a twat > jimz 08/21/2019 at 21:21

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Sometimes I can be a condescending prick, but generally in class I`ve learnt to be quiet, specially if it’s something I’m unfamiliar with. It seems like I didn’t approach this post correctly in order to show that. I know very little about aircraft design and manufacturing... but perhaps what I found arrogant by the IE was that he simply shouted out the answer without even thinking about it for a moment. Admittedly, Many students are this way. 

I’m trying to be more mature about the whole condescending thing... but it’s a WIP.

Spanfeller is a twat > WilliamsSW 08/21/2019 at 21:32

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I shouldn’t have made the distinction... after all, pretending to know everything is endemic across all engineering students at my college. 

Spanfeller is a twat > WilliamsSW 08/21/2019 at 21:35

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I believe that the wing spars for the 787 are made out of CFRP. 

WilliamsSW > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 21:50

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  Lol I think that’s true of most highly educated people. Certainly doctors, too. 

WilliamsSW > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 22:00

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Aluminum can do that, too. 

facw > WilliamsSW 08/21/2019 at 22:28

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The 787 really is aggressively bendy though. The only aluminum wing I can think of that’s design to regularly bend like that is the B-52's, which slopes down so much in no small part because it will bend up significantly in flight:

WilliamsSW > facw 08/21/2019 at 22:37

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Having flown on most of the newer wide bodies, and usually sitting over the wing at the window, I can confirm that the 787 wing curves upward a lot in flight. The 777 does also ( and every airplane does it to some extent) but not as much as the 787.

Some of that is wing design, I’m sure - and the material allows tha t design.

I wonder if that’s a part of Boeing’s trick to reduce turbulence??

Jayhawk Jake > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 23:09

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I don’t entirely understand what you’re getting at here. There are rivets everywhere in most airplanes, not just tying the outer skin to the underlying structure. There are probably some rivets in the wing box assembly.

Also the way wings attach to the plane vary depending on the plane. Our current production stuff is mostly bolted on underneath the fuselage. It’s not connected through a wingbox.

It’s also up to interpretation on whether or not you consider the center wing box to be part of the fuselage or part of the wing...

Longtime Lurker > Spanfeller is a twat 08/21/2019 at 23:37

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Wing nuts. I thought everyone knew that. /s

f86sabre > Spanfeller is a twat 08/22/2019 at 03:48

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Really, they are bolted on. The wing skin may be riveted, but the wings are generally attached to the fuselage with bolts.  

Spanfeller is a twat > WilliamsSW 09/29/2019 at 18:13

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Would you find it in any way ironic that I might have to change to Industrial Engineering because I’m moving to Madrid?


I sort of did. 

WilliamsSW > Spanfeller is a twat 09/30/2019 at 17:46

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Why change to IE because you’re moving? That doesn’t seem to be a good  reason to change to something you don’t want?

Spanfeller is a twat > WilliamsSW 09/30/2019 at 17:55

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Well, none of the colleges I’ve looked into that are convenient to where I’m moving, and might revalidate the courses I already took have Mechatronics... The closest is industrial technologies engineering, which is like IE but with like a bit of computer sciences thrown in for good measure which I’m open to.. . At the beginning I prefered the mechanics courses but as I’ve advanced I’m starting to appreciate computer sciences and electronics a lot more. 

Right now the most advanced courses I’ve taken are on computer sciences and electronics; I’ve left the mechanics part a bit behind , so chances are that by transfering I might even save a semester... which would be nice.