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Thread: Wings and cargo
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Old 13th April 2006 | 18:41
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Mad (Flt) Scientist
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Joined: Sep 2002
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From: La Belle Province
Access to the wing would be more complex; there's nowehere obvious to put a hatch. (Leading edge is bad for aerodynamic reasons; trailing edge is too thin; top is hard to access from ground; underside is accessible but the hatch is where you'd put the 'floor' of the cargo space, so you'd waste space for the hatch.

Wings are also a strange shape internally, both due to the external aerofoil shape and due to the load-bearing structure throughout the wing. It's relatively easy to put holes in ribs to allow fuel to pass, rather less so for baggage.

Fuel is also easy to distribute in a systematic fashion in the tanks; cargo would be subject to loading variations, with implications for e.g. flutter

You still have to put fuel somewhere, and fuel in the fuselage is a bigger fire hazard, so its also safer to put fuel in the wings and cargo in the fuselage.

A few reasons off the top of my head.
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