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The plane tech that could make turbulence a thing of the past

3 pointsby maxutilityover 1 year ago

1 comment

nvyover 1 year ago
This is not new technology, but it&#x27;s definitely interesting. I played with exactly this stuff for my capstone design project in undergrad in 2009 or 2010. Our application was super-high-res aerial photo&#x2F;videography but the principle is the same.<p>What you can do is essentially fly around with a little bit of flap extended, and if the system senses a gust&#x2F;pocket of air that would cause an &quot;upward bump&quot; sensation you can shed lift by pulling the flap in and&#x2F;or deploying lift spoilers. It requires high precision instruments to pull off, and usually the physical actuators on flaps are not designed for quick movements so you either need a separate system or a new flap actuator.<p>All this adds tremendous complexity, and much like the MCAS system if it deploys during a critical phase of flight it could plausibly send you into a stall situation. As a result it also has strong safety requirements which means significant engineering costs.<p>All in all I highly doubt the juice is worth the squeeze. Airlines can do their market research of course, but I doubt that this will move the profitability needle much in today&#x27;s environment.