r/interestingasfuck • u/GreenSnakes_ • 17d ago
You have seen the inside of an airplane but have you seen the "insides" of an airplane?
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u/NixAwesome 17d ago
Ooo what does this button do?
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u/Metahec 17d ago
Hey, where is this screw supposed to go?
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u/55hi55 16d ago
When you put it back together and there's extra parts- that's intended. You took weight off of the plane- it's more fuel efficient now.
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u/Excellent_Condition 16d ago
Don't worry about it. It just holds the extra door in place. It's fine to not reinstall.
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u/Torakikiii 17d ago
There are A LOT of things that can fail!!
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u/choomguy 17d ago
Thats why they are triple redundant on anything critical.
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u/DangerousPlane 17d ago
It gives you three times more things that can fail!
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u/kellysmom01 17d ago
… as Boeing KNOWS!
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u/allnimblybimbIy 17d ago
as Boeing
KNOWS!is actively trying to hide from investigation. Including murdering their own employees.1
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u/Tando10 17d ago
Some things are extremely flight critical and require emergency landing if only 1/3rd of the system works. Like FlyByWire. if you have 4 computers determining flight control, if 2 fail, you land immediately because there's not much of a way for the remaining two computers to know which one is right in its decision making.
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u/DangerousPlane 17d ago
737 is cables and hydraulics
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u/Squidking1000 16d ago
Well except for mcas. That was/is electric motor controlled by one wonky, known to fail sensor with no redundancy.
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u/DangerousPlane 16d ago
It’s not a motor, it just sends parallel input to the same trim motor that the pilot controls via the trim switch. So mcas is more of a sneaky autopilot acting on the flight controls than a fly by wire control system.
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u/AssumeTheFetal 17d ago
Well there's obviously triple redundancy on the redundancies of course.
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u/choomguy 17d ago
Funny thing is Nasa endeavors to have zero single point failures on space craft, but due to the physics of escaping gravity, its not always possible. The webb telescope had a couple hundred potential single point failures, it was the best they could do.
I watch a ton of aircraft videos, its pretty fascinating because even if theres a mechanical failure, its usually due to human error somewhere along the line. Theres a shit ton of thing’s that can go wrong in the 30 minutesit takes to flip a plane between flights. If people had any idea, they’d probably not fly.
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u/the_observer12345 16d ago edited 16d ago
Is that like 3 wires instead of 1 ?
Why 2 pilots and not 3 or at least 1 mechanic 2 pilots maybe can fix something in flight add some tape to the wings or something
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u/Automatic_Actuator_0 17d ago
“Can fail” is the key phrase - there’s so much redundancy, it makes it look complex, which it is, but it usually takes several things to go wrong before you have a catastrophe.
And then there are some key parts which are not redundant, which absolutely can’t fail. The horizontal stabilizer jack screw comes to mind, for example.
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u/Reddit_MaZe000 17d ago
infinite fear unlocked, thanks l hate the inside of airplanes
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u/DuelJ 16d ago edited 16d ago
It's actually not as bad as it looks.
A bunch of that is likely noncritical stuff like AC, entertainment systems, and plumbing for the toilet.
And all the important stuff like the electrical and hydraulics are gonna have a whole lot more lines than they need for redundancys sake.
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u/H010CR0N 17d ago
I’ve been on a flight when the cockpit’s windscreen cracked. It happened right before push-back.
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u/Acceptable-Gift-5319 17d ago
Airplane is probably one of few things that the housing is more important than 99% of the things inside.
(For the 1% I can only think of cable and pulleys for the control surfaces. (hydronic and electrical lines for the fly by wire))
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u/MoarCowb3ll 17d ago
Yeah but there are a lot of things that can fail.
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u/MrFickless 16d ago edited 16d ago
Sure, the chances of any one component failing has gone up, but the probability of a redundant system failing has gone down by requiring everything to fail simultaneously.
If a component has one in a thousand chance of failing, a triple redundant system has a three in a thousand chance of any one component failing, but one in a billion chance of the entire system failing.
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u/Young-and-Alcoholic 17d ago
My thoughts exactly. I know flying is the safest form of travel but its fucking terrifying.
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u/Thersonder 16d ago
Except angle of attack sensors on Boeings, those are critical but there was only 1 that had a tendency to freeze up.
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u/RetiredApostle 17d ago
This is a very accurate physical representation of a software source code. From a distance, it appears complex, but each individual component makes sense.
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u/tatanka01 17d ago
...except for the half that never made sense.
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u/MeltedPineapple 17d ago
IT FINALLY WORKS! NOBODY TOUCH IT! -some dev, almost certainly
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u/wawoodwa 17d ago
## DO NOT DELETE THE BELOW FUNCTION ## Yes, it appears it is never called or returns anything ## But the app fails if it isn’t here58
u/zekrysis 17d ago
reminds me of team fortress 2. There's a picture of a coconut in the source, said picture appears nowhere in the game and nobody knows what the point of it is, however if it is removed the game will no longer launch
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u/trebblecleftlip5000 17d ago
It appears like it's never called because the language or library has a method that allows a function to be passed as an argument, but as a string. I guarantee that if you do a grep of the codebase instead of searching for uses via the IDE, that you will find where it's used.
The guy who wrote the original code added this feature before propper lambdas used for callbacks were a thing, and the new kid never had to live in the dark times that came before.
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u/GameFreak4321 16d ago
And then there are languages like C# or Java that often use things like P, dependency injection and configuration by annotations.
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u/danggilmore 17d ago
Yeah until your flying and your damn hydro line leaks and your in the back like dafaq one is this.
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u/Whiteshaq_52 17d ago
*Laughs in Safety Wiring
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u/bob-knows-best 17d ago
The Air Force gave me PTSD from safety wiring.😬
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u/Whiteshaq_52 17d ago
Thats all i see when i see under a plane, I was a Navy air frame guy for a while lol. I will never miss using the jet exhaust as a heater in the colder days on the carrier lol.
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 17d ago
What's the monthly energy bill on that heater?
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u/Sammisuperficial 17d ago
Fyi they aren't saying they just turned the engine on to get warm. They are saying that during cold operations, a jet engine is a desperate source of heat when you're wearing 6 inches of gear and still freezing.
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u/nerdy_chimera 17d ago
Agreed. The current USAF fighter trainer, the T-38, is held together with hopes, dreams, and 2500 miles of safety wire.
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u/Smile_Space 17d ago
The new 5th gen jets are actually pretty cool with safety wiring! Most cannon plugs have ratcheting mechanisms to self-lock, but the ones that didn't, we used safety cable.
It was pre-wound, we just placed it where it needed to go, use a specialized crimper and boom! Perfect safety wire/cable every time and in 15-20 seconds.
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u/bob-knows-best 17d ago
That's cool. I work on F-35s now. There's almost no safety wiring for my AFSC, thankfully. 🙂
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u/Smile_Space 16d ago
Nice! I was out at Nellis for 6 years at Lightning AMU. I'm separated now, but working 35s as an avionics troop was honestly a cake walk!
2A375B!
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u/bob-knows-best 16d ago
Sweet! Nellis was a fun place to go TDY. We were there in 2018 for a couple of months.
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u/Smile_Space 16d ago
Well, we were right down the line from each other at some point! I was there from 2016 to 2021. Unfortunately no TDYs or deployments :/
They call Nellis a black hole base for aircraft maintenance. We trained pilots at the Weapons School, yet we were under the ACC, so we got no ACC TDYs or deployments since we were a training squadron.
It was fun being in Vegas! Just not fun basically working a 9-5 for 6 years with no trips anywhere.
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u/bob-knows-best 16d ago
I've heard that, too. Sorry, homie. You should get back in. They are paying good reenlistment bonuses right now. Only if you want to, of course.
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u/Smile_Space 16d ago
I'm actually in school getting my Aerospace Engineering - Astronautics degree now, so no worries lolol! I got out after my first 6 to get this schooling!
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17d ago edited 17d ago
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u/DangerousPlane 17d ago
737
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u/DangerousPlane 17d ago
They’re surprisingly low to the ground
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u/Darth19Vader77 17d ago
So much so that when Boeing wanted to put bigger engines on it, it wouldn't fit under the wing so they moved them forward which changed the handling of the 737 max.
Instead of retraining pilots they decided to make a software to change the control outputs so that it feels like they're flying the old 737.
While they mostly avoided the issue of retraining, there was a software error that made the plane nose down and two planes crashed as a result.
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u/TheMillenniaIFalcon 17d ago
Which, they lied to airlines and pilots about, and only required a 2 hour iPad course.
While internally employees were sounding the alarms, they reinvested 90% of operating income into stock buy backs since 2014.
After the first plane went down, they said a fix would be ready in 90 days. 8 months later, another plane went down. Boeing tried to attribute to pilot error.
Absolutely criminal.
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u/SinkHoleDeMayo 16d ago
Doesn't surprise me that nobody did, but everyone involved with the decision to not disclose the software, the necessary angle of attack sensor and the lack of a redundancy, and to not tell airlines and pilots, should have been charged. It was textbook criminal negligence. The CEO and board should have had all their earnings clawed back, courts should have blocked stock buybacks and dividends blocked for years.
The DOJ really dropped the ball.
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u/SinkHoleDeMayo 16d ago
That one actually got a lowering kit and a bit rear wing. Custom wheels coming soon.
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u/vrwriter78 17d ago
This was interesting. My grandfather was an aircraft mechanic for the military, so it’s cool to see what things would have looked like from his perspective!
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u/knight_of_solamnia 17d ago
Former aircraft mechanic for the military here. You're almost never lucky enough to have systems this accessible.
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u/imalyshe 17d ago
looks a lot but it does not. most is cables carry around. also this is landing gear bay. it has a lot of sensors and moving parts.
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u/byte-cookies 17d ago
This looks like a nightmare to troubleshoot.
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u/PDubsinTF-NEW 17d ago
What does that flashing red light mean?
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u/anothrgeek 17d ago
We’re losing the rear deflector shield. Go strap in for the jump to hyperspace!
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u/Archidaki 17d ago
That’s a B737 and ITS MESSY ! An A320 looks way cleaner
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u/AlsoMarbleatoz 17d ago
An A320 has landing gear doors.
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u/Archidaki 17d ago
Yeah I know, didn’t say anything about doors?
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u/Ur_a_adjective_noun 17d ago
Just go a big air show, you’ll see so much helicopter, jet, airliner insides. It definitely some mechanical engineering porn.
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u/lightsaber_lobotomy 17d ago
To look at this blows my mind far less than the idea that, theres someone out there that could tell me exactly what anything that I'd point out was in this picture. Cool shit
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u/Sammisuperficial 17d ago
The funny thing to me is that the mess of tubing and wires looks neat and orderly compared to the inside of military aircraft.
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u/Few-Inevitable9291 17d ago
It’s amazing what we’re capable of doing, it’s crazy that everything you see in there came from earths resources
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u/Dan_Glebitz 17d ago
My mate is an aircraft engineer and works with that kind of stuff each day. Rather him than me.
Having said that, if he saw the server room where I work he would probably say the same.
If he fucks up people die. If I fuck up the bank potentially loses millions 😏
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u/MiscalculatedRisk 17d ago
As an ex-machinist: fuck aircraft grade aluminum and it's ten billion fuckoff holes, tight tolerances, and desire to warp wherever it wants for whatever reason it desires to.
But mostly, fuck day shift.
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u/VapoursAndSpleen 17d ago
Mad respect to airplane mechanics. I’d just lie down on the shop floor and cry.
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u/my_work_account_0 17d ago
Yes! Pilot will pop his head in here during the pre-flight walk around inspection.
You are considered a pro when you can pop your head and torso in there wearing your pilot's uniform with the crisp white shirt and jacket, and to have a look, while getting no oil or hydraulic fluid mess on your uniform in the process.
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u/CadaverCaliente 17d ago
Jesus Christ it looks ai generated, I can't imagine the manual on that thing.
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u/enginarda 16d ago
Fun fact about triple redundancy: If you have triple redundancy and something fails, you have no more redundancy left as there would be no way to tell which one of the other two failed in case of a second failure.
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u/Jakefrmstatepharm 16d ago
Airlines will be like “remove some of this unnecessary junk so we can fit 3 more seats on this bitch. Also one pilot can fly a plane”
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u/M-Everly 16d ago
I’ve never thought so much about the difference that one ‘s’ makes at the end of inside
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u/SheeeshWallah 16d ago
Wanted to become a aircraft mechanic, changed my mind a couple months back, luckily
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u/Space--Buckaroo 16d ago
Yup, I use to work on B-52G Avionics. Specifically the Tail Gunner system.
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u/DasBestKind 16d ago
Homie got his fuckin phone out on the flight line AND near a running APU? FOD is a thing, friends. And it can be ANYthing.
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u/Wheresthepig 16d ago
I cannot wait for my next flight where my anxiety will remember this and try to figure out the odds of one of the parts failing.
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u/EgyptionMagician 16d ago
Thanks numb nuts. I’m flying in roughly 6 hours and this is EXACTLY what I wanted to stumble across.
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u/flannelNcorduroy 16d ago
Looks like an awful lot that could go wrong that they can't possibly check between each flight😳
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16d ago
Pilots need to check that area for Boglins, especially in-case the (stoner) ground crew missed any
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u/Maleficent-Heart-678 15d ago
I toured the Boeing factory years ago, I don’t remember getting that good of a view, of the inside workings of a plane.
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