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Alexis Rastorguyeff's avatar

Hi, Scott.

Commercial airline engineering 101...

The weight a large commercial airliner can take-off at, and what it can land at, are two very different things. The force the landing gear can take is only so much, and the extra stress of landing at 140+ mph and a 10 fps vertical velocity is a lot more than rolling down the runway at take-off. When a plane takes off at/near max gross weight, and a mechanical problem occurs that forces a return to the airport, the planes are designed with fuel dump systems that allow for the removal of tons of extra weight before landing. Those dump systems always discharge as far away from the engines as possible, hence the tips of the wings.