Winglets?

[PhatAJ2008]

What are their purpose?

 

[willNOTfly4free]

Less than 2 minutes on Google produced this:


"A winglets purpose is to reduce turbulence at the tips of an airplane's wings. The air pressure on the bottom of a wing is greater than the pressure on top, so when air flowing across the two surfaces meets at the wing tip, it forms a vortex-a miniature tornado. The vortices created by a large airplane are strong enough to flip a smaller plane that is following too closely.

By breaking up vortices, winglets reduce the drag on an airplane, which translates into fuel savings. So why don't all airplanes have winglets? The airflow around winglets is complicated, so designing them is tricky. It's easier to improve an airplane's lift-to-drag ratio by simply making the wing longer, though this can lead to other problems, such as fitting into gates.

Conventional upright winglets are currently used on a number of airliners, including the Boeing 747-400 and the Airbus A330 and A340. On some of its 737 models, Boeing uses 'blended' winglets, which curve up from the wing instead of sticking straight up."

 

[Bavarian Chef]

What are their purpose?

They are like riblets, but with wings. They are kinda like drumettes, but not really. Still very tasty in buffalo sauce and a side order of bleu cheese dip.

 

[Lake Alice]

What are their purpose?

Seriously?

 

[LearLove]

the pilots banked too steep on a crosswind landing and bent the tips up when they hit the runway (more than likely it was a military trained guy or someone that came from a PFT program or Embry Riddle). then to fix it (so the faa wouldn't get wise) they took off again landed in the same crosswind in the opposite direction and bent up the other side so they match.

fearing that their pilots may get violated by doing this the company then painted yourairline.com on the inside of the bent up tip to further throw off the faa.

thats the real story and I'm sticking to it - don't believe anything anyone here tells you about aerodynamics or some guy named whitcomb. its all a govt cover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Whitcomb

 

[jijarwm]

Back in the 80s before winglets were all the rage:

My aerospace structures professor in college, Dr. Howard Smith, explained it this way: When the wings fold up in flight after a massive G-load, the winglets come together up on top and give you an extra little wing to fly down to the ground on.

(Of course, Dr. Smith used his arms and hands to illustrate the point. He was a very animated little bald man with a heavy New Jersey accent)

 

[PhatAJ2008]

Thanks for the Wiki link, should have looked there first.

 

[Lear70]

My aerospace structures professor in college, Dr. Howard Smith, explained it this way: When the wings fold up in flight after a massive G-load, the winglets come together up on top and give you an extra little wing to fly down to the ground on.

(Of course, Dr. Smith used his arms and hands to illustrate the point. He was a very animated little bald man with a heavy New Jersey accent)

That's a great visual, thanks for the laugh...

 

[LearLove]

Thanks for the Wiki link, should have looked there first.

if you want a good basic (laymans terms) guide to aerodynamics and aircraft design get the "illustrated guide to aerodynamics".

http://www.amazon.com/Illustrated-G...1882546?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177123122&sr=1-4

i studied mechanical engineering and focused on aero/fluid/thermo dynamics and feel that this book is by far the best in bringing the discussion to basic terms.

 

[LearLove]

holy crap did a google search on the book and most of it is online already:


http://books.google.com/books?id=C8...+guide+to+aerodynamics&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title