Wing movement

This is a really silly question, but i am sure someone here will be able to answer, if i understand coorectly we have a large collection of flying experience in the forum.

On our recent flight to Orlando we eperienced a little turbulance. I had a seat with a great view of the wings. i noticed that the wing seemed to bend ..... a lot.

My question therefore is this, how much bend can a wing take? I assume that there is a normal amount of movement between the tip and other end.

Hope someone can answer.

Found this hope it helps, but all aircraft wings are designed to flex ALOT!! So don't worry.......

You would be surprised to see how strong the wings of a commercial airliner are.* If you had watched the documentary in the Discovery Channel about the Boeing 777 being the airliner of the 21st Century, you would have noticed how much stress the wings could take.* In fact, on a test rig of a Boeing 777 wing, the tip was stressed as much as 24 feet from the level position before it gave way!* Yes, it is possible for the wings to be torn off on ground due to collision or a crash, but the thought of a wing being torn off in flight is extremely unlikely.* The airplane design engineers have to comply with very stringent FAA Regulations on wing construction. So there is no fear as to the wings tearing off in flight at any time in severe turbulence!
[msnsmile2]

Thats reassuring.

It wasn't a matter that has stopped me getting on planes. Just happened to notice on this occassion that there was a lot of movement, thankfully less than 24 feet.

Thanks anyway.

It's perfectly normal and a design feature of all aircraft. If the wings were built to be totally rigid then you would have a very big chance of problems, but with the in-built flexibility they have they are extremely safe.

Engineers use the same principle with skys[bad language filtered out]ers. If they didn't flex, they would snap! So the nice folks at Boeing know exactly what kind of stresses the wings will have to deal with and they design them to flex enough to cope with that; and then flex some more too just to be safe.

Maybe the birdlike 'flapping' effect of the wings gives more lift to the plane? [msnscared][msnscared]

That was meant to be skyscr apers.

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Nostromo
Maybe the birdlike 'flapping' effect of the wings gives more lift to the plane? [msnscared][msnscared]
[/quote]

Errrrrrrr No![msnwink]

Same applies to the big roller coasters, 2 young girls in the queue infront of me were very concerned at the movement in the supports of one of the rides ( Python i think!) they were desperately trying to attract the attention of the attendant to tell him, they thought it was on the verge of collapse until my husband put them right,[msnoo]<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Snapper
Engineers use the same principle with skys[bad language filtered out]ers. If they didn't flex, they would snap! So the nice folks at Boeing know exactly what kind of stresses the wings will have to deal with and they design them to flex enough to cope with that; and then flex some more too just to be safe.
[/quote]

When Boeing were testing the 747 they bent the wing up using a huge hydraulic jack. It snapped with a crash at around 80dgrs!
Wings are made to flex. Next time you watch a jumbo land watch the wings flexing as the aircraft touches down. Thats due to the wings abruptly stopping producing lift. So, don't worry! It's normal.