Aer lingus winglets

Nordicgael

I was looking at pictures of the new aer lingus 757 and what is noticable is how big the winglets are compared to the rest of the aer lingus fleet- are they even called winglets on the A320?
anyways i know they are basically designed for fuel efficiency- dont quiet understand how exactly this works but my question is why dont all planes have these new winglets?
if they save fuel surely it makes sense to have them on all planes even the shorter routes or is there a reason why they only work on longer routes?

space2ground1

I think I remember reading that they allow the larger aircraft to have shorter wings which makes taxiing easier too. They block the turbulent air that would otherwise make the wing tips useless. Could be something to do with the width limits in some airports. Total newbie guess though.

nd001

The winglets reduce vortex's developing at the edge of the wing tip which would otherwise create drag and as a result fuel efficiency is increased. The winglets are used by boeing and Embraer. Airbus have their own design that doesn't involve winglets but still serve the same purpose

martinsvi

aer lingus a320 only have so-called "wingtips", airbus introduced winglets to their a320 just recently and called them "sharklets" - few of the newer lufthansa a320's have them, they're pretty much the same size as boeing alternatives.

it is my understanding, that the cost of maintaining these winglets can be quite high, so installing them does not always pay off - at least that's what the general notion was few years ago, maybe now things are different...

nd001

martinsvi wrote: »

aer lingus a320 only have so-called "wingtips", airbus introduced winglets to their a320 just recently and called them "sharklets" - few of the newer lufthansa a320's have them, they're pretty much the same size as boeing alternatives.

it is my understanding, that the cost of maintaining these winglets can be quite high, so installing them does not always
pay off - at least that's what the general notion was few years ago, maybe now things are different...

Ye the aer lingus A320/21 are a decade if not older at this stage well most of them anyway so no winglets on them. Ye the main thing with this winglets is if they come into contact with anything at all they tend to get damaged and need to be replaced which is obviously costly

L1011

nd001 wrote: »

Ye the aer lingus A320/21 are a decade if not older at this stage well most of them anyway so no winglets on them. Ye the main thing with this winglets is if they come into contact with anything at all they tend to get damaged and need to be replaced which is obviously costly

Most of EI's A320s are far less than a decade old - only EI-CVA/CVB/CVC are over ten years old. Add in the three A321s and that gives us six of the 36 A320 family craft that are over a decade. Add two of the four Little Red craft which are from 2003 if you really want to make it 8/40.

The existing wingtip fences are not *that* much more efficient than the sharklets and retrofitting sharklets to planes that are more than a few years old requires heavy (weight) and expensive mods to the wings that make them only provide a return on fuel consumption on certain sector lengths.

Danbo!

Here's an A321 with 'sharklets' I snapped in manchester 2 weeks ago. Look cooler than the 'wingtips' on EI fleet IMO

space2ground1

Skip to about 3 mins! Interesting stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvRqT04Z6rE

Irish Steve

The 757 was not originally fitted with winglets, they have been added a long time after the aircraft ceased production, and are there to assist fuel economy. Most modern designs are having them fitted in one form or another, and i would be surprised to see any new aircraft that don't have something of this sort on them. The only time that they would not be much help is on very short routes where the aircraft is not cruising for some time, but there are not many jet routes like this, even Ryanair have fitted them on the 737-800's, which tells us something, they don't do things like this unless there is a payback, the 800's didn't have winglets on them originally, and the fleet was retrofitted so that all have winglets now.

There is a slight performance issue with cross wind limits, the limits with winglets are lower than for aircraft without them.

martinsvi

Irish Steve wrote: »

the fleet was retrofitted so that all have winglets now.

I thought that the oldest of Ryanair planes are from the time when they started fitting winglets in factory, went on do do some research. Sure enough, I found EI-DAC, the 11 year old to actually not have winglets originally, but then I stumbled upon this picture - http://www.airliners.net/photo/Ryanair/Boeing-737-8AS/0311686/L/&sid=f0c0badf966b06081053aaed4f5b964b

picture's worth a thousand words

Preset No.3

http://www.aviationpartnersboeing.com/index.php

Plus EI-CSA was the oldest FR 738

Zyox

martinsvi wrote: »

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Ryanair/Boeing-737-8AS/0311686/L/&sid=f0c0badf966b06081053aaed4f5b964b

picture's worth a thousand words

Clear one.