PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Liquid dripping from 777 wing
View Single Post
Old 25th April 2014 | 09:16
  #4 (permalink)  
Uplinker
Community Builder
Community Influencer
25 Anniversary
 
Joined: Nov 1999
: ATPL
Posts: 3,150
Likes: 744
From: UK
Yep.

During a flight, the wings and fuel in them can get down to -30 degrees centigrade or lower, (the temperature of the air at cruising levels is around -56).

After the aircraft has landed, the wing itself warms up quite quickly, but where there is cold soaked fuel remaining in the tanks, it causes moisture in the air to condense out, quite often forming ice. During the walk around of an aircraft that has been in the cruise a long time, there is often water dripping underneath from this ice melting as the wing warms up and (relatively) warm fuel is pumped into the tanks.
Uplinker is offline  
Reply