In this day and age, its super common for airplane manufacturers to use very complex Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software and Computer Aided Design to test and build airplane wings.  The new wings on airplanes like the 787 and Airbus A-350 are both relatively simple in structure and super efficient.  But these fancy tools didn’t really exist back in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Back then the only tools they had were slide rules, blueprints and wind tunnels.  That fact makes the triple-slotted Krueger flaps on the Boeing 727 even more amazing.  These flaps allows short-field takeoffs and jet operations out of hot and high airfields like Mexico city and Chicago Midway.  In the video below, check out the amazing transformation of the wing on the aged but beautiful 727-200.  It’s an #avgeekery work of art.

This video and more beautiful #avgeek videos are available at airsidetv.com

November 16, 1982. That was the day Boeing nearly lost a 757 during the flight test program. It was during a flight into known icing conditions to test the 757’s deicing systems. Two inches of ice built up on the wings. At the time, Rolls Royce thought a flexible spinner hub on the fan would prevent ice formation instead of a traditional heated fan spinner which would be heavier. It didn’t work. Large chunks of ice from the spinners were ingested by the engines, damaging the fan blades to the point that the flight crew had to throttle to idle and coast back to Boeing Field- to descend into terrain around Seattle with insufficient engine power to go around left many shaken, from the flight crew, test engineers, and FAA reps onboard.

Rolls had to hurriedly design a traditionally heated spinner hub for the RB211 engines which met the icing criteria and testing. You can read a little bit more about this incident in a Seattle Times article about the 757 here: http://seattletimes.com/news/business/757/part05/