The Aircraft Engineers Called a Death Trap — Until It Flew Millions Safely скачать в хорошем качестве

The Aircraft Engineers Called a Death Trap — Until It Flew Millions Safely

The Aircraft Engineers Called a Death Trap — Until It Flew Millions Safely If you've ever flown on a commercial airliner, you owe something to a plane that terrified its own designers. The Douglas DC-3. When it first rolled out in 1935, engineers at Douglas Aircraft looked at the blueprints and saw a disaster waiting to happen. The wings were too thin. The fuselage was too wide. The whole thing looked like it would snap in half the first time it hit turbulence. Donald Douglas himself had doubts. His team had just finished the DC-2, which was already pushing the limits of what metal aircraft could do. Now American Airlines wanted something bigger. They wanted 21 seats instead of 14. They wanted sleeping berths for overnight flights. They wanted luxury in the sky, and they wanted it to make money. The problem was physics. Every airline wanted more passengers, but aircraft design in the 1930s was brutal. Add more weight, and you needed bigger engines. Bigger engines meant more fuel. More fuel meant more weight. It was a vicious cycle that had killed plenty of aircraft programs before they ever left the drawing board. Like and Subscribe to ‪@AircraftArchives‬