SCALING in Boat Design and why the twin towers fell down so easily

Spectacular picture Kacchi22I. No doubt done with a tilt film plane vue camera. Focus at top nearly as good as at bottom. Your point is well taken. The "mine is bigger than yours" syndrome is rampant in America. Cars, boats, and anatomical features. We can take heart because Airbus has finally trumped our bigger is better thing.

 

Wait until Boeing comes out with a huge flying wing..........you will see, America is No. 1!!!!!!!!

Details like the leaf imprints in the towers base are wonderful.

Eiffel tower base
http://www.clt.astate.edu/wallen/digits/eiffel/default.htm

 

The answer there is crew cost. The same reason the Air Force uses jumbo transports, cruise ships are pushing 250,000 tons, and bulk carriers go huge. Especially in the smaller, all volunteer force, trained man/womanpower is costly, so there is a need for largest possible carrying capacity per vehicle, within the constraints of its operating environment. Note: "largest possible carrying capacity" does not necessarily equate to "most efficient".

 

Your point is definitely valid, BWD. Ultralarge size (2-3 times bigger than previous builds of the same type, for example) requires, actually demands, exceptionally creative thought to identify potential problem areas so engineering methodology can analyze and test for measurable effects and design solutions. Failure to imagine all the possible scenarios is what usually leads to accidents from previously unknown causes. Early in the jumbo jet era there were a series of accidents in which small planes crashed on takeoff. Eventually the cause was determined to be powerful vortices coming off the wingtips of the jumbos. They were both much more powerful and much more persistant than anyone had imagined. In the 1980's there was an incident in which a VLCC cracked its hull while being loaded at pierside; that was due to failure to watch loading patterns closely, but the mate had seen deviations in loading without problems in his previous and smaller ships; didn't think the loading plan was critical..... but it was because the new ship was larger, creating larger stresses. So close adherence to procedures was even more critical, precisely because of the larger size.

 

And Airbus is finding out the difficulties of designing and building the biggest thing. Meanwhile, for a change, Boeing is focusing on building a not so biggest plane, but making it more efficient to operate..... what a concept!!