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XB-1's wings are officially closed out

blog.boomsupersonic.com

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Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#41

Post by AWildC182 »

mauvehaus wrote: post #17

This is probably a dumb question, but if the wings are now closed forever, how does one do maintenance or inspection of the mechanical flight control systems composed of cables and pulleys? Is the expectation that the XB-1 is going to be used in flight for far less than the design life of those mechanical systems?

Aluminum aircraft go together more or less the same way. There will be some inspection panels but the interesting stuff is already exposed, there's very little reason to go inside the wings, particularly on a composite aircraft where corrosion isn't a problem. If you really need to see something, use a borescope.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#42

Post by loeg »

AWildC182 wrote: post #39
jamestimmins wrote: post #22

Does this mean if any repairs are needed they'll have to rebuild the wing from scratch? I'd love to hear from someone at Boom what the main goals are for this aircraft. And how it will differ from the larger transport craft they're planning. Beyond size and capacity.

Carbon repairs are relatively easy as long as they don't damage any internal structure. IIRC they usually just patch and sand.

Only way to verify no internal damage is an X-ray. I'm sure they've thought of that, though; this is carbon manufacture 101.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#43

Post by jupp0r »

From their web page:

“Faster travel brings the world’s people, cultures, and experiences within reach. Life happens in person, and at Boom we see breaking the time barrier as a moral imperative. XB-1 is the first step in bringing supersonic travel back to the world.” -- Blake Scholl, Founder and CEO

The life happens in person part currently sounds like a relic from the past. I hope Boom makes it through the travel recession.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#44

Post by AWildC182 »

loeg wrote: post #42
AWildC182 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carbon repairs are relatively easy as long as they don't damage any internal structure. IIRC they usually just patch and sand.

Only way to verify no internal damage is an X-ray. I'm sure they've thought of that, though; this is carbon manufacture 101.

Depends on the event. I've never heard of anyone doing an xray on hangar rash type damage, at least not within a part 91 environment. Taxiing into a pole would be a different issue however.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#45

Post by bacondude3 »

AWildC182 wrote: post #37
ricardobeat wrote: post #27

This is quite scary for a non-engineer. You're telling me that this little supersonic plane has the whole wing structure held together by a handful of 4mm thick metal struts, manually glued to the wing surface, with wire pulleys running on the inside :O

Building a plane in my garage. You'd be surprised how minimal yet how strong a lot of these structures are. The vast majority of the material I use is thinner than a credit card.

I want to hear more about building a plane in one's garage. Are you using a kit? How hard is it? Cost? How will you transport it to an airport once it's finished?

It sounds like it would be a great project.

Thanks.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#46

Post by divbzero »

Are there other industries like supersonic and space flight where a competent startup could attract top engineers in the field from government and academic jobs? (This question is partly rhetorical. If you have a good answer… Go do it!)

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#47

Post by loeg »

AWildC182 wrote: post #44
loeg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only way to verify no internal damage is an X-ray. I'm sure they've thought of that, though; this is carbon manufacture 101.

Depends on the event. I've never heard of anyone doing an xray on hangar rash type damage, at least not within a part 91 environment. Taxiing into a pole would be a different issue however.

Oh, sure.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#48

Post by AWildC182 »

0xff00ffee wrote: post #35

Man I'd be sweating like a pig if I was direct-applying epoxy to a prototype so close to done. I'm used to code where trial and error is de rigueur, I forget sometimes you only get one chance.

I work in aerospace software so I live in between those two realities. Much like software, they'll do testing to make sure everything is bonded. They've also done plenty of modeling to determine what the expected strength is and they have a significant error margin baked in.

...They also don't call them test pilots for nothing...

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#49

Post by learn_more »

mauvehaus wrote: post #17

This is probably a dumb question, but if the wings are now closed forever, how does one do maintenance or inspection of the mechanical flight control systems composed of cables and pulleys? Is the expectation that the XB-1 is going to be used in flight for far less than the design life of those mechanical systems?

They mention having a portable ultrasonic device for "seeing" inside the wing.

Re: XB-1's wings are officially closed out

#50

Post by opencl »

jupp0r wrote: post #43

From their web page: “Faster travel brings the world’s people, cultures, and experiences within reach. Life happens in person, and at Boom we see breaking the time barrier as a moral imperative. XB-1 is the first step in bringing supersonic travel back to the world.” -- Blake Scholl, Founder and CEO The life happens in person part currently sounds like a relic from the past. I hope Boom makes it through the travel re…

Considering that their production aircraft is at least five years from going into service, I sure hope the travel recession is over by then.
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