why is it better for the turbines on a jet to sit under the wing rather than over it?
In: Engineering
Put a box on the table in front of you.
Now, using your finger, push in the center of an edge. It’ll move more or less straight.
If you instead push almost at a corner, it’ll want to turn.
The same goes for aircraft. You want to line up the engines where they’ll push the aircraft straight, or slightly upwards. You do not want to put them where they want to push the nose down.
Mentour Pilot on YouTube has a video on this, as well as tons of other info on the ‘whys’ of various aircraft design. I highly recommend checking his channel out.
Lots of good answers it’s also worth mentioning that engines are removed from the plane regularly for maintenance. It’s easier to mount and remove an engine under the wing
Just gonna point out that with fcs and advanced computer aided design, you can put the engines wherever the fuck you want and I’ll probably still fly.
My guess would be easier to maintain below and also, lift works from the top of the wing, so having an engine sit on top of the wing would reduce amount of air traveling over the surface area of the top of the wing, reducing lift.
So you can walk easily in the wings if you need to evacuate the plane. There might be millions of reasons more I’m not aware of, but that one makes sense.
I’ll give two more reasons that I didn’t see other commenters add:
2. For commercial airliners, passenger comfort is a big deal. Having the engines below the wing and away from the cabin mitigates the noise.
3. If the engine were to detach in flight then it’s better for it to be able to fall away cleanly rather than potentially falling onto the wing or worse hitting the control surfaces at the rear.
When I did ground school we talked a lot about parasitic drag [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_drag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_drag)
I’m not an AeroEng but I’d think that you would not want to break the air flow over the top of the ~~where~~ wing where 80% of lift is generated.
Edit: typo
If engines basically just push air really fast. And lift is created by the air on top of the wing moving faster than the air under it, wouldn’t you want the thing that moves air fast on top of the wing with the other fast moving air?
Along with everyone else’s answers, the wing would act like a shield against the engine noise, making it quieter in the cabin. Of course, this really only applies to low-mounted wings.
Edit: spelling
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