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Do airplanes really expose their internal wires and electronics like this on the wings when braking?
You will have both hydraulic system plumbing lines, the metal pipes, and wiring harnesses running along the rear spar, serving hydraulic actuators and electrical components like sensors and servos, etc.
The hydraulic plumbing is already hermetically sealed, being hydraulic plumbing holding 3000 psi (21 MPa), so being exposed is no big deal. The wiring ...
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Do airplanes really expose their internal wires and electronics like this on the wings when braking?
To complement things mentioned in other answers and comments, in particular the mention of the underside of a car, here is what the undercarriage well looks in a Boeing 737:
Neither these pipes and cables nor the ones in the OP, are continuously exposed to the elements, though they do during a landing. They are designed to do so, the same way that the ...
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Do airplanes really expose their internal wires and electronics like this on the wings when braking?
You are seeing spoilers deployed at/after landing in order to reduce the lift on the wings and make the braking of the aircraft more effective.
The "cables and electronics" as you call them in your question are primarily high quality, adverse weather resistant metal (or some composite material) tubes and flex hoses that carry hydraulic fluid/...
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Do airplanes really expose their internal wires and electronics like this on the wings when braking?
With the flaps set to a fully deployed landing position, and the spoilers raised, you can get a pretty good view of the flap well. The side with all the “cables and electronics” is in fact the outside of the rear wing spar. This forms one of those key components of a wing box. Fwd of that is the interior of the wing box which acts as a sealed fuel tank in ...
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Do airplanes really expose their internal wires and electronics like this on the wings when braking?
Are those cables and electronics?
Cables, yes. Electronics, no, other than a few sensors.
Just exposed right into the air like that?
Yes! Air is neither corrosive nor an electrical conductor under most conditions.
Isn't that bad?
Not at all. Some of the smartest minds in engineering designed these systems with one primary goal: safety.
Sure, it's on ...
3
In an aircraft with no horizontal stabilizer, it's much easier to create a design with adequate pitch stability if the design has a delta wing than if the design has a rectangular wing. If the design also has no vertical stabilizer, the advantage of a delta wing over a rectangular wing is even stronger.
If you go for a rectangular wing in either of these ...
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If I understand the details of your question (the first part), the center of pressure should never be completely behind every part of the aircraft structure. That would not be possible.
However to answer the question as you pose it in the last sentence, the CP does not have to be on a part of the design where there is actual aircraft structure. If the ...
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Do airplanes really expose their internal wires and electronics like this on the wings when braking?
Remember those lines are not exposed to the airstream; they are placed in an area that sees little moisture and pressure when the plane is moving. In flight, the flaps will have moved forward, closer to them, and the airbrakes would be lowered shut, so there are not many places for air to flow inside that pocket. One bad (it would require to be flying with ...
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On our RF-4C's the pilot could not fold the wings the crew chief had to do it. It was part of the 25 hour check to fold them and inspect and lube them.
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