New Wing , originally uploaded by longbachnguyen.
If you look closely, all those red marks on the ZA001’s wing, flaps and engine pylon are pieces of yarn. All the computer models running on all the super computers in the land are no match for seeing it with your own two eyes in flight.
When Mike Carriker discussed the new instrumentation added to ZA001 between first and second flight, the addition of yarn to the left wing was exactly what he was talking about.
The yarn will demonstrate how the airflow moves over the wing of the 787 and validate (or challenge) the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models developed for the program.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.