When the Wright brothers created the
first flying machine it was termed as the biggest breakthrough in
science. The flying machine was only able to carry a single person but
with the development of its designs and structure, we now have airplanes
of many sizes and capacity. We have jets that are able to break the
sound barrier and we have jets powerful enough to carry tons of weight
at great speed. But all of this has been made possible with neck
breaking and brains racking engineering and art. The shape has been
modified and the jets of today are super in speed and performance.
An
airplane flying in the air is vulnerable to the slightest disturbance
and it can be easily blown to pieces by even the smallest air pressure
disturbance inside. Some incidents of the past have revealed that an air
plane no matter how tough it looks on the ground can be volatile in the
air. That is why the need to create the most tightly packed and sealed
aircraft is essential. When a new design is created, its miniature
models are tested for air friction in the lab. But a real life sized air
craft can only be tested in reality and not in labs. The only way to
check its tightness is by the
hatch cover ultrasonic tightness testing.
Due
to the giant size of the aircraft it is impossible to check it by any
other means. In the past the tightness checking was done by dousing the
entire body with water. This process not only took many days to complete
but also took many hours on a single area if any kind of suspicion was
raised. The cost to carry out the test was not only expensive but it
also caused the price of the aircraft to soar to such heights even the
best airlines were not able to make the purchases in bulk.
Today with the method of checking
tightness of hatch with ultrasound,
quality testing is done only in a matter of hours and the price for
these tests has come crashing down to only some mere dollars per
aircraft. This process has not only made the prices of aircrafts come
down but it has also made it possible to manufacture speedily. This
process is not only known to be the longest lasting process, but it is
also the cheapest.