Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.8 $; site ccvaxa
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat
From: wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: de Havilland Comet at ORD?
Message-ID: <5300006@ccvaxa>
Date: Fri, 4-Oct-85 19:13:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: ccvaxa.5300006
Posted: Fri Oct  4 19:13:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Oct-85 15:00:35 EDT
References: <338@ektools.UUCP>
Lines: 18
Nf-ID: #R:ektools.UUCP:-33800:ccvaxa:5300006:000:835
Nf-From: ccvaxa.UUCP!wombat    Oct  4 18:13:00 1985


I had always heard that the problem with the Comet I was the windows. They
had sharp corners, unlike the rounded windows you see on airliners today.
This gets nasty once you repeatedly subject the airframe to stresses, since
forces love to concentrate on anything that deviates from the basic flat
plate, or tube, or sphere, especially 90-degree angles right in the middle
of the side. Increased stress leads to increased strain leads to shorter
time to failure, and you fall out of the sky.

It was used as a example (as was the ever-popular Tacoma Narrows bridge), in
a general engineering lecture and later an aircraft structures course, of
how not to design something.

"When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all."
				Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand*

						Wombat
					ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com