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Re: Whitley test "produced a failure at 98% of the design load" is that good?
A couple of observations. Implied but not stated is that the 'Failure' at 98% was during an Ultimate Load under static conditions. Assumption not fact (for me) is that it was a static wing load test with dead weight sand bags distributed like an assumed loading for a dive pullout or coupled with the fuselage in some way to predict symmetric bending loads on the fuselage for a pullout or even ditching/hard landing..
Nobody in the airframe business was attempting to analyze asymmetric load conditions except for possibly lateral rudder/vertical stabilizer loads during a yaw condition during dive. Offhand, such analysis could yield useful insight to the fuselage failure modes while taking out the empennage loads in bending and torsion at the carry through structure/longerons.
98% sounds pretty damn good to me but I'm sure the structures chief would have preferred 102.
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" The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
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