Originally Posted by Mr Optimistic
To those who might know: given the move towards twin engines, does the need to cope with an engine out situation mean that the VS is now disproportionally larger than it used to be...
Disproportionally, no. Proportionally, yes.
....and does this then lead to a greater risk of over stressing the VS if the dynamics go off-nominal ?
No.
It's all a matter of design criteria, SOPs, and a few other factors.
You can pull the
wings off an airliner, if you want to try...
And you can overstress the VS on an eight-engined aircraft.
There is a famous photo of a B-52 minus nearly all the VS, and they actually brought it back.
CJ