Originally Posted by
West Coast
Until the human element is removed, the potential to forget to put the gear down, the wings up or the flaps out exists. I'm not as positive as you that the crew will catch it.
Indeed, and yet there are literally tens of thousands of aircraft operating with retractable landing gear and retractable leading and trailing edge flaps. Clearly the operators and regulators recognize that the advantages far outweigh the risks.
Let's hope Boeing's wing fold config monitor is flawless.
Flawless? Why flawless? The landing gear and flap protection systems are far from flawless and the consequences of a failed or misconfigured gear or flaps is far far worse than misconfigured folding wingtip.
I suspect if crews forget anything, it'll be to fold them up after landing and end up whacking things in the gate area.
The thing about the gate area is that there are lots and lots of additional eyes in the gate area than just the flight crew. In addition, the gate area has a 25 ft clearance margin. The wing fold only reduces the span of each side by 10 ft. So while entering the gate area with unfolded wingtips will certainly result in a clearance violation, it will not necessarily result in a wingtip impact.