Have you observed that planes always have rounded windows? Ever wonder why?
It turns out that planes built to fly at high altitudes (more than 30000 feet) need to have pressurized cabins. To support the internal pressure, cabins need to be cylindrical in shape.
When plane builders used standard square windows on the cylindrical planes, they noticed that pressure would build up around the corner of the windows at higher elevations. It even led to the crash of three airplanes in the 1950s after the fuselage tore apart during flight. Designers fortunately figured out the design flaw and soon corrected it to make the corners round so they could withstand pressure in cruising altitudes.
Look out for the next post on our “Did You Know?” segment as we explore some more fascinating facts.
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