12-15-2017, 02:25 AM
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Master Modeler
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Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Fairbanks, Alaska
Posts: 6,507
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by BEC
Fortunately we have three dimensional tools which we've used since the 777 program and much more recently some kind of VR-like tools we used on the 737 MAX which help with this. But even today sometimes a physical mockup is of amazing value in figuring out if folks can reach places either to put the airplane together in the first place or to fix it later.....
(I guess even though I've been retired for over a year I still feel like saying "we"....for some portions of the 777 and later the 737 Next Gen part of my particular responsibility was getting folks together each week and "flying thru" the 3D and helping them sort out spatial stuff including maintenance access.)
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I've seen at least "for public presentation" versions of such computer imagery, which show how human beings--or at least dimensional outlines of their bodies--"fit" in cars, airliner seats, and so forth. But it never hurts, as you wrote, to try out real people in a real, solid model (a mockup), to make sure that limbs can fit into spaces without a person having to be a contortionist.
My only sorrow regarding jetliners--which I'm sure cuts no ice with the accountants, but to me is an aesthetic loss--is that they all fit just one "formula" now (a cylindrical fuselage with moderately-swept wings and tail surfaces, with two wing-mounted high-bypass engines), while T-tails, rear-mounted engines, low-bypass turbofans (I remember *turbojet*-powered airliners, like the Convair 880 and early 707s and DC-8s) and three- and four-engine variations become rarer as those aircraft are withdrawn from service. |