TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Simply funny !!!
only ten tons to big.
China's transport, tanker & heavy lift aircraft
- Thread starter Totoro
- Start date
only ten tons to big.
by78
General
Simply funny !!!
Oh no, David Axe is going to fall for it.
Equation
Lieutenant General
Ultra
Junior Member
Those are nice pics! Bravo!
Y-20 sure look like its shaping up to be a beauty. But I also noticed it doesn't have the winglets that C-17 and many modern jet transports have.
Why is that?
Why doesn't Y-20 have winglets?
I think the interesting thing is that Russian transports like the IL-76/IL-78 (which is the basis of Y-20), also doesn't have winglets. Winglets seems to be a very "western" thing to have.
Y-20 sure look like its shaping up to be a beauty. But I also noticed it doesn't have the winglets that C-17 and many modern jet transports have.
Why is that?
Why doesn't Y-20 have winglets?
I think the interesting thing is that Russian transports like the IL-76/IL-78 (which is the basis of Y-20), also doesn't have winglets. Winglets seems to be a very "western" thing to have.
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Winglets are an old invention, half a century old. They were inspired by the tip feathers of crows and birds of prey but note that birds that live farther from trees like gulls don't have them. One of the first aircraft to sport them, experimentally, was a Morane-Saulnier 760 with three winglets on the tip tanks. It took a long time for them to be incorporated into series aircraft but I suspect that it is at least partly a fashion item. While the winglet has advantages the connection of winglet and wing tip has disadvantages so the net advantage might be slight against a certain increase in production and maintenance costs.
The main advantage is that the tip vortices are above, or in the case of the Boeing 787 above and below, the plane of the wing which decreases the induced drag for a given weight and wing span.
Master Delft is on it here, they are largely fashion, none of our fighter aircraft wear them, and they likely add a little weight as well, recall Dick Rutan, and Jeanna Yeager drug one off on their round the world flight on take-off, and they yawed the aircraft until the other one departed the aircraft as I recall, they did complete their round the world flight as I recall?? Illustrates full well how important they are in my opinion, although they do have some advantages???
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Fighters don't have them as they are not really suited for super sonic flight back in the year of our Lord Nineteen hundred and ninety one, Nasa tested a number of Winglet styles on supersonic flight and found that the wing alone performed better.
but for subsonic flight they offer increased fuel efficiency reduced drag and better flutter control.so if your building a fighter which needs to go supersonic winglets are out
if a SST they are out
if a transport then thunderbirds are go.
Considering that the only recent military jet transport is the C-17, it's hardly a western thing to have, especially when virtually all other military transports don't have winglets, so really it is C-17 which is unique in this case, not Y-20.
Winglets, as said before, is just a design choice. Asking why or why not isn't a very meaningful quesiton
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Winglets can still be added to Y20 and Y30 when they enter production. Many aircraft start there lives without it and end with it as a Fuel economy optimizer. Lockheed Martin has studied them for future variants of the C130J.
remember C17's most direct ancestor the YC15 lacked winglets.
remember C17's most direct ancestor the YC15 lacked winglets.
Ultra
Junior Member
No, winglets isn't just some fasion item - they do have huge advantages when design right. It extends the range of the aircraft markedly as it improves the fuel efficiency of the aircraft; it also improves aircraft handling characteristics and enhance safety of the aircraft. It also increase the effective aspect ratio of a wing without materially increasing the wingspan.
For example, the winglets increased the 747-400's range by 3.5 percent over the 747-300 (without winglets), and in 2002, Boeing first flew a production Next-Generation 737 with its new Blended Winglets, six-foot extensions that decrease fuel consumption by about 4 to 6 percent.
"Lockheed expects a 4% increase in the C-130's range as a result of fitting the 5ft-tall winglets, which add 5ft to the aircraft's wing span. Airbus expects winglets to improve the C295's hot-and-high runway performance, increase range and endurance, and reduce operating costs."
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