SWA3472

[HJ1an]

Why at all have they deformed engines?

If I recall correctly, the gearbox accessory was moved to the sides instead of sitting on the bottom therefore, giving it the nacelle that shape and also more ground clearance.

[Octal450]

Too low to the ground.
Boring(Boeing?) to lazy to fix it.

[D-ECHO]

Hm, not that great design concept... I doubt this is more efficient than regular-shaped engines.
Also the cockpit windows make it ugly, IMO

[Octal450]

DC-9 series for the win.

[jwocky]

The 737 engine casings are really some piece of crazy old-school engineering. Flatter on the lower side, the whole shape geared to transmit pressure form the lower side to the upper side, for the pure engineering of it ... beautiful!
See, the total round ones, Airbus have, have no contact surface and no pressure transfer by design. If you ditch the lower side of an Airbus casing hard on the tarmac, the whole thing cracks about the middle line, mostly on the outside because they are not entirely round, only almost.
So, imagine a belly landing with one of the small ones. Both have not much space left with the lower side of the engine casing to the ground. But the Airbus has not much contact off the middle line and if he makes contact on an engine casing, it just cracks away. Now look at a 737 after such a landing. Well, there were not so many of them, but ...




there are a lot more on this website, feel free to look. The impressive part is, how much of the engine casing is still around where it belongs after the plane slid on it. And they rarely flip over as far as I can see.

Airbus on the other hand

The casing is total broken in, if you look closely, you can even see, the breakline was short under the middle line of the casing. And one casing breaking earlier than the other let the wing flip down and is the reason why Airbuses veer off in belly landing while the 737s most of the time just slide more or less straight lines.

But of course, there is a limit for everything.

[Octal450]

That is a silly comparison.

The 737 may have just landed softer...

[HJ1an]

While I agree it is hard to make a comparison, there are 2 things going for it:

1. Physically, it made some sense. The far forward engine will tend to flip up more instead of flip *under* and dig in to cause a nose dive (see the lack of cockpit damages) in such a landing, and the shape tends to give a predetermined crushing point to give way.

2. Boeing made it work; more impressively so when considering that they are doing so at a disadvantage compared to competitors - yet, the comparison numbers from the airlines are almost neck to neck.

I still think the whole reengining thing is a kludge... especially the 737 Max. But given my impressions of an 737NG it is a very impressive one.

[HJ1an]

That looks like a catastrophic cowling failure... the fanblades look like it's still on.

So upon scrutiny at SWA3472 it seems to me what I thought was the fanblade was actually the outer compressor blades... the fan blade was completely gone. Someone not torquing the thing on right after a service?? (I can imagine someone who actually works on aircraft rolling his eyes reading that sentence )

[D-ECHO]

Maybe this concept is the safest?

[HJ1an]

Maybe this concept is the safest?

I wouldn't want to be seated at the very end if a failure happens... Rear-engined planes have the fanblades with zero clearance to the fuselage.

Anita Saxton, 39, and her 12-year-old son, Nolan, returning to Michigan from a Florida vacation, were killed almost instantly by metal fragments flung from the engine. Also, chances of a piece slicing up important hydraulics and whatnot.

Nolan's brother and sister -- 15-year-old Derrick and 9-year-old Spencer -- were released Sunday from Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital. Sitting near their mother and brother when the accident occurred, Derrick was slightly burned and Spencer suffered a facial cut and leg fracture. Derrick carried his sister off the jet after the accident.

See : http://edition.cnn.com/US/9607/08/delta ... l?_s=PM:US