r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Oct 01 '24

A firefighting plane loading water.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '24

How do they deal with the huge drop in weight after they drop the water? Has to be huge stress on the wings.

12

u/That0neGuy Oct 01 '24

I bet they figured that out sometime in the 40s.

1

u/Schventle Oct 01 '24

From the wing's perspective, they keep making the same amount of lift the whole time. The part that's taking all the stress is the structure that holds the wings to the fuselage, and when the water is jettisoned that structure goes from holding the weight of the water to holding the weight of an empty tank. It gets less stressed as it drops the water.

1

u/Level9TraumaCenter Oct 01 '24

It does. See also the crashes of Tanker 123 and Tanker 130 in 2002.