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Boeing Blended Wing Body Aircraft
pcolley writes "I love it when Science Fiction becomes reality. Boeing is nearly finished designing their super efficient Blended Wing Body (BWB) airplane. It looks like the BatJet." Boeing is considering both civilian and military roles.
There've been delta-wing type aircraft since the 50's. Always touting the "lift of the entire aircraft". What exactly is the issue that 1) they have never caught on with the airlines or public and 2) Boeing thinks it's solved? What am I missing?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I just hope that they have worked out the stability problems. The "all-wing" design has been notorious for being unstable except with computer help and "fly by wire" controls. If they have trumped these problems, go ahead; besides, I have no need to see outside the craft (one of the downsides mentioned. The passengers would be seated in wide rows only a few deep- think of the current tube and turn it 90 degrees, so only a few people would have window seats). But they are considering placing LCDs in front of all the seats with the option of seeing outside the plane. Now if they gave me ultra zoom over the midwest so I could see that farmer's daughter......
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
The flying wing "blended wing body" (BWB) concept i was originally developed by McDonnell Douglas but was acquired by Boeing when the two companies merged.
Hooray for industry.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I'm reaaaaaaaally curious to see an artist's rendering (photo'd be better...) of this plane. Anybody know where I can find one?
"Derp de derp."
Commercial airlines carry on using the tried and tested 7X7, 3=X=7. The airplane industry is a classic case of "if it ain't broke" -- consider the sheer *lack* of modern technology in a 747, for example.
The top down view reminds me A LOT of a stealh bomber.
"We've dropped off the passengers in France, now to drop off our 'packages' in northern Afganistan."
a more detailed (engineer-friendly) page would be nice
Here.
Sorry, I didn't see the other two links.
I withdraw my question. *hides* I'm so used to Yahoo not having pics. Heh.
Hmm.. I'm looking at the plane now. I see the design problem with adding windows. I was hoping I could offer a suggestion, but it is a huge challenge.
I bet what they do is make a 'lounge area' where people can get up and look out the window. I don't see right away how else they can, non-electronically, give people a view outside.
"Derp de derp."
It's difficult to imagine anybody flying in this thing. For one thing, the passengers are intended to be kept in compartments close to the center of the aircraft, so no window seats. The very wide body means much greater displacement when the aircraft banks so even a slight bank would feel like a roller coaster ride for those on the extremities. One of the most important design challenges is emergency evacuation. And -- would the average person fly in a radically new, untested airframe?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Pictures are available through the two links "civilian" and "military". Teach this +2 poster his place, mod his two posts down to hell.
Boeing calculates that a BWB seating 480 passengers would use 32 percent less fuel than the proposed A380-700 [...] The plane would weigh 19 percent less, suggesting that it would cost less to build. And it would need 19 percent less thrust, saving on engine manufacturing and maintenance costs.
We at Boeing have the solution you are waiting for. Yes, our 747 is outdated and someone else is making a better product. We don't have an alternative to show but if you hold off buying your new big planes just another few years we'll supply you with a cheaper, better and more efficient product.
Now, why exactly does this all sound so terribly familiar to most of us?
It looks to me like the only ones who will have a window seat will be in the cockpit and those near the "nose". Everyone else will (it seems) be looking at the back of someone else.
Let's hope someone gets a clue and makes the entrance to the cockpit come from the outside of the craft.
One of six operating groups within The Boeing Company, Commercial Airplanes is headquartered in Renton, Wash., under the leadership of President and Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
-Fzz
Now if we could just figure out how to put linux on one of those.
/. community
Or better, why not put all of the RIAA executives in the first test one, that would appease the
Offtopic, maybe, but flamebait?
The original Pledge of Allegiance may be controversial, it may have been written by a Socialist, and it may have been replaced in 1954 by a Congress and President desperate to stand up to the godless Communist menace - but it is most assuredly NOT flamebait.
To dismiss so cavalierly this pledge that is so dear to the hearts of millions of Americans is nothing short of treason. For the love of the Republic and the Constitution so valiantly defended in the Ninth Circuit this week, brothers and sisters, I implore you to MOD PARENT UP!
Thank you.
Pay the fuck up!
from the meet-george-jetson dept
;)
Does that mean it uses a Referential Universal Differential Indexer for navigation?
(ref)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
I can just imagine the noise from one or three of those made big enough to push this thing along ;-))
And no, I wouldn't ride on one either...my baby bottle was warmed on the cooling fins of a Stinson Flying Station Wagon. My first hours as a co-pilot were in a Cessna 180. I like to see what's up there.
db
Cig:
ôô
Now Bin Laden's hord needn't hijack TWO planes to hit the Petronas Twin Towers, ONE is enough.
I am assuming that the mil version will be bombers -- so you can just keep the trap doors on the civ. version too. whenever there are terrorists / annoying drunkard / people smoking in the bathroom -- just open a little trap door and "foop". done.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
BZZT ... the B49 and B2 are full flying wing designs. The Blended Wing is a cross between a traditional swept-wing design and the flying wing concept. Aerodynamically all 3 designs have very different performance characteristics.
... if you hear tell from the old time Boeing employees, Boeing died that day and McDonnell just kept the Boeing name so that people would realize that management was being taken over.
And Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas, and it was a merger in name only
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
a few - from the looks of it, maybe 40 (10 per side per floor) get to look out the forward facing windows, and the other 760 passengers get to look at the back of people's heads.
The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
-- Molly Ivins
"Teach this +2 poster his place, mod his two posts down to hell. "
Or, you could just realize that I made a simple mistake and continue on.
The reason I was asking was that I wanted to see if I could come up with an interesting solution to the windows problem.
As for +2 posting: At least I'm not hiding behind AC so I don't lose my karma. +2 is a default setting. I didn't change it.
"Derp de derp."
Would allow a single tv to be used for viewing movies at some hours. Other hours would go to playing video games on the plane.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
If I can get a window seat, this thing will be awesome since one of my major wishes when flying (too often) is to be able to see out front.
But if I can't get near the window, and with 800 person capacity most likely I won't, I'm going to have a claustrophobic fit. Some people simply -need- to be able to see outside while on a plane. I don't get logically fearful but sometimes I do just have that crammed-in crazy feeling.
I wonder if there will be a noticable rise in air rage incidents per person on these?
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
man, even the new airbus 380 has trouble landing in something like 20% of the airports cuz it's too big. and that's less than 80m wingspan! this sucker have over 88...
we will see... the US has ran out of room to build more airports (or we don't wanna or something) near metropolitan areas -- so there are virtually no new airports built that will accomodate these massive things.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I'm inclined to act on behalf of Jack Northrop, who was flying blended wing bodies in the 40's. I'm calling BULLSHIT! The N-1M is still a popular flying wing aircraft with private pilots today. The N-9M is equally popular with model aircraft enthusiasts (I personally spent two years of my youth finding a rare Tamiya kit of one of these). Then theres the B-35 which just barely missed WWII, but was featured in the original Orsen Wells "War of the Worlds" movie. Then there was the YB-49, a jet powered blended wing bomber. And lets not forget the MX324, Americas first rocket powered military aircraft (the designation "MX" is for "Missile, Experimental", which probably didn't comfort the pilot too much). Of course, the Nazi's had everyone beat with their ME-262 Komet - a rocket powered blended wing fighter-interceptor.
Boeing can no more claim this is "revolutionary" than I can claim that my G3 PowerPC powered linux server at work is revolutionary.
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/fta/fta198.htm"
" The Blended Wing is a cross between a traditional swept-wing design and the flying wing concept."
Don't forget that several companies were competing to make a plane that was basically one big wing. That was considered the 'holy grail' of aviation. I saw a couple of old old films of failed attempts at designs that looked a little like a boomerang.
The confusion of who invented what doesn't surprise me. I'm confused about it myself because of all the different models that were tried. Heh.
"Derp de derp."
http://www.boeing.com/phantom/bwb.html
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
The one thing would like to see a line of flat panel screens across the front of the plane. During more interesting parts of the flight, these could provide a singular, wrap aroud view from cameras mounted inthe nozecone of the plane - it would look very cool. The rest of the time,they could simply switch over to show inflight movies.
We at Airbus calculate that our double decker A380 will carry more passengers further while burning less fuel than the 747 which is available today...
Or any other announcement about future products from any other manufacturer.
Been out in the real world lately? Newly fallen off the turnip truck?
Infuriate left and right
What most people don't realize is that this plane is directly competing against Airbus (Beoing's cloest competitor in this space). This plane is truly new in how it flies, what it does, etc. It is a HUGE step forward in commercial planes that will have major impact on the industry in terms of cost, savings, etc.
Traditional "bus" like airplanes cost a lot for fuel, maintenance, etc. Also, many of those planes aren't easily modified to support the new TVs, internet, etc that the newer Beoing and Airbus planes have. With this plane, it has all of the gadget, gizmo's AND it saves the airlines money.
Sure, not seeing out the window may not be a big deal to some, but saving money for the airlines is what they want. This plane will be rolled out and if it fails, it's gonna hurt Boeing a lot for the commercial side (its doubtful, but possible).
Last, but not least, the stability issue isn't going to be a problem for this wing craft. With all of the computer involved, GPS and fly by wire, its about as advanced as the military grade fighters and bombers, just without the stealth and weapons.
So how exactly does this benefit the consumer? How much do airlines currently spend on fuel? How much does one flight cost other than the fuel?
I suppose if fuel costs would be 1/3 less per person and the number of flights required per day would be cut in half, the savings per passenger would be somewhere in the 33% to 50% range, but how much of that are we likely to see?
The plane would weigh 19 percent less, suggesting that it would cost less to build. And it would need 19 percent less thrust, saving on engine manufacturing and maintenance costs.
Okay, now _that_ is cost analysis for you! By that reasoning a gun should cost less to build than a club because it weighs less. That example is a little oversimplified, but if the BWB was really similar enough to the tube and wing design to justify that kind of ballpark estimate then they wouldn't have needed to spend as much time researching as they have (and will continue to spend) to solve the engineering dificulties presented by the new design. And Boeing is going to have to factor in the costs of the long research period once they actually start producing it.
Last i checked the airlines weren't in great finacial shape, and once these things start rolling out of the factories they may have to start taking out large loans to update their fleets. And of course they're unlikely to drop the price on tickets by a huge amount for as long as they have those loans to pay off.
That means that the smaller airlines that can't aford the new jets will continue to be feasible for awhile, until five or ten years later when the big airlines finish paying off the loans, and at _that_ point we may see some big price drops. Of course by that point it may be too late for the smaller companies to switch over, and i'm not sure what they'll have to do to stay competitive.
This isn't to say that the idea isn't really cool and would make good economic sense for the long term, but the idea that a medium increase in efficiency will "slash the cost of air transport" all by itself is a naive view of economics. (I won't pretend my view is perfect, but i'm trying to be a _little_ more realistic)
As for the windows issue, it would be cool if they could replace the walls and ceiling with polarizeable high impact plastic of some kind. Make the entire thing into a skylight! It wouldn't give you much view of the ground unless you were near one of the edges, but it would still help everyone feel less cramped i think.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Wonder why they picked NorthWest's colors for their graphic?
EnkiduEOT
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
If we need that kind of volume in airplanes, then passenger miles have come to the point where high speed trains make sense: on most routes, they are more economical, more comfortable, and more environmentally friendly.
Actually it was a rather hostile takeover by Boeing. I have spoken to employees of McDonnell Douglas, and the owners of Boeing took the decades of competition very seriously and took the scorched earth policy when taking over McDonnell Douglas. Anything with the name 'McDonnell Douglas' was wiped out, lots of people canned, so on and so on.
stipe42
There's an international standard that all commercial aircraft have to fit into a 262ft (80m) square footprint, which drives design issues like how far apart the gates have to be at airports.
This thing has a projected wingspan of 289ft (88.1m), which means that at airports where it can't "accidentally" fit, special gates will have to be built for it. (Then again, it'll probably have such a weird arrangement of doors, that you'll need multiple oddly-arranged jetways anyway.)
Without windows, how will people (a la Shatner and Lithgow) see the creature skulking about on the wing?
Bullshit!
I can call my linux/ppc server revolutionary. Hot damn, maybe I'll get a raise.
On second thought, asking my boss for a raise is about like asking him for a kidney.
And -- would the average person fly in a radically new, untested airframe?
Boeing has a solid method of both ensuring an plane's good design and ensuring the public that their plane is airworthy.
The send the design engineers out with pretty much all the first flights. As a budding mechanical engineer, that's damn good motivation for me to make sure my plane is designed well.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
What "modern technology" is lacking in a 747-400? It has new avionics and new engines, what else is it lacking? Sure the airframes' basic design is old, but it isn't as though airfoil design has changed much for heavy lifting aircraft.
It also has one potentially serious drawback: almost no passenger would have a window.
Why not a glass bottom? Seemed to work for boats. Might be kinda freaky though.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
The money making in aviation is getting farther and farther from carrying people, and more and more to carrying cargo. Boxes don't care where they sit, nor do they worry much about evacuating. While this may or may not catch on for the passenger market, this could make a big splash with the freight dogs. Boeing also has another concept on the drawing table http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/concept/ which is a near supersonic transport aimed squarely at the long haul passenger market. It will be interesting to see which is developed.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
This must have been said by people watching Orville and Wilbur.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
"all-wing" design has been notorious for being unstable except with computer help and "fly by wire" controls."
Fly-by-wire is already present in new passenger aircraft and has been used to control inherently unstable airframes in military aircraft for over a decade.
Performance pretty much sucked, so they switched the powerplants to eight turbojets (this was the YB-49) which solved the performance issues. Around 1949, Northrop started to think about a civil version, supposed to hold 80 passengers, IIRC, with one big window in the front, the flight deck above.
A combination of (some say) conspiracy, political pressures, strategic considerations, and cost killed the program. Much of the research went into the early development of the B-2 (also by Northrop, almost 50 years later).
At any rate, none of these machines were computer controlled. Not saying that's how it will be on Boeing's machine (probably will be--the 777 is fly-by-wire, as are all the Airbuses), but it's not strictly required for a flying wing.
--Ribald
On potential problem with this plane is its size -- the footprint diagram shows it to be considerably wider than a 747. The 747 is already at the width limit most airports can accomodate; that's one reason the wingtips on the newer generation 747's flip up rather than just extending further. The terminals reach out to service two 747's side by side. This plane would require major construction at any airport it landed at.
--Ribald
What part of the equation isn't clear to you?
Slashdot Patriotism: We Support our Dupes!
Now I gotta fly first class to get a stinking window seat? Or are the "bottom" windows in steerage-class?
Space Propulsion Engine for Flying Saucer - New Physics
Rumor in Silicon Valley -
Inventor of 3D volume holographic optical storage
shopping his concept for Space Propulsion Engine
using Propellantless Mass to US and other countries.
http://colossalstorage.net/colossal.htm
He says he has looked at and researched the world's space agencies, aerospace
companies, universities research, and corp. research and feels very confident
knowing others technology while no one knows his.
He is working in top secret and he says no physicist or scientist he has ever studied or researched had this approach and knows his concept will work to give near light speed travel thru Galaxy with 500K/Miles per Hour to start or 138 miles/sec. Nasa fastest time are 25,000 mile/hr or 3.9 miles/sec
he says it is a mankind first concept !!
Think about it, fewer than 50% of the people on an average 737 or 757 get window seats anyway. The portion on widebody aircraft is even smaller.
In fact, many flyers deliberately choose aisle seats so they have a little more room.
Hi, I'm a tool that quotes myself.
Granted, it looks really cool. I'm sure it has all kinds of gee-whiz new technology. But who is going to buy it? The airline industry is in the toilet. Most of the big airlines are on the brink of bancruptcy and have to turn to the feds to co-sign on their loans. Five years ago would have been the perfect time for this plane. Hopefully the economy will do a turn-around soon. I'd like to see these at the airports and in the skies soon.
All it needs is stadium seating and windows in the front. Then everyone would be able to see.
For me, the next real breakthrough will be a soundproof room where children can be taken when the begin to cry. Nothing worse than sitting next to a toddler whose as freaked out as I am when flying. Doesn't do anything for my nerves.
1) Allow laptop use
2) Add hubs
3) Flying LAN Party
4) Frag away
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
Well as it's a modern craft, it should have a personal monitor in the seatback. It should be easy enough to install a bunch of cameras around the plane and allow any passenger to pick the view they want.
The Germans had many revolutionary aircraft, but you have attributed at least three wrongly.
The Me 262 "Schwalbe" was a duel-jet engined fighter-bomber.
The Me 163 "Komet" was a (somewhat) blended-wing rocket interceptor.
The "true" blended-wing aircraft used by the Germans were built by the Horten and Gotha companies. One of which, the Go 229, was actually test flown before surrender to the allies.
A large number of aircraft designs from many German firms in development at the end of the war showed a fascination with the blended-wing design. Even Messerschmitt, who continued building Bf (later Me) 109s right up until the end, was working on aircraft such as the Me 329, a 'zerstoerer' (heavy fighter) of blended-wing-body design.
In fact, we should all be crediting the brothers Reimar and Walter Horten, who began experimenting with flying-wing gliders in 1931. It was their Ho IX which was put into small-scale production as the Go 229.
My favorite plane of all time the Horten 229.
i l_ hoix.htm
http://www.hotel.wineasy.se/ipms/stuff_eng_deta
Another site of amazing flying machines.
http://visi.net/~djohnson/luftart.html
This is for trans-oceanic, not regional travel. It's efficiency will give it a monster range, so you can go LA-> Singapore in one shot, I think. For the distances that trains are practical, airlines tend to prefer smaller planes (eg 737s) and more numerous departure times.
It's not an SUV, it's a freighter for the skys.
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
If this trend continues, someday everyone will be riding on a craft that no-one is flying, that uses no fuel and is too big to land anywhere.
Oh, wait...
McDD is the one that died that day. Boeing management are the ones that survived. Boeing commercial aircraft are the ones with a future.
Sorry to be lame and reply to myself -- but i think it's better than being lame and keep a bunch of ideas mis-communicated.
1) Airbus 380 has wingspan of 79.8m -- and many airports (the stat was ~20% last i heard) cannot accomodate its size. by comparison, Boeing 747 has a wingspan of 64.4m
2) This proposed design has wingspan of over 88 (88.1?) meters. so if airbus 380 does not fit into some of today's airports, this will be having lots of troubles
3) the rate of new airports being built in the US is diminishing to a handful per year. Most metropolitan areas are surrounded by suburbs and new airports to accomodate new (bigger) planes is out of the question. this leaves us with a serious dilemma: our current airports do not fit these things, and there arn't any new airports here to take their place.
4) before anybody asks -- yes airports can be re-fitted. Chicago-midway, for example, is currently undergoing something like that. but even AFTER refitting, A380 will *still* not fit in ~5% of the airports. (something to do with runway length, gate width, etc etc that makes it economically or logistically impractical to refit) so i do not expect refit to be all that powerful a solution to our new one-wing design.
so... like the concord -- this might come off to be one of the vanity flights offered at only a few airports (for a different reason, of course) -- but it *would* make an excellent alternative if it could land on, say, water. so instead of cruise ships, we can ride THESE all day -- and maybe the top observation deck can be made with a glass ceiling dining room, etc etc. the possibilities are great for these planes -- but i just don't see it in people-carrying NY-Tokyo flights.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
These days many airlines are having trouble filling their 400 or 200-passenger jets. If they're only able to book a maximum of 200-400 passengers on these planes, the airlines are going to end up paying even more for fuel per passenger than they are now.
There went that idea. Next?
without a view of the exterior, airsickness would likely increase... because a discrepancy between what you feel and what you see is what causes your inner ear to tell you it's time to blow chow.
Just let me know when they come out with the blended wing bowl toilet. Now there's something that matters to the working man!
Have you figured out yet that the reason he's kept that sig is because dumbshits like you are so disturbed by it? You're being trolled and falling for it repeatedly. Heh.
I notice several posters questioning why, if this thing's so great, we haven't seen it before. While this would seem a rather odd question on a TECHNOLOGY based forum such as Slashdot, I've tried to offer a bit of an explanation.
Prior to now the BWB was not an option for several reasons, perhaps the greatest being the design of a pressure vessel (remember airliners are pressurized). Typical tube and wing style airliners solve the problem of the pressure vessel by taking pressure load in hoop tension. While this is, from a structural perspective, the preferred way to carry the pressure load, it is not feasible to do so in a BWB aircraft, as the vessel is shaped more like a pancake. This brings is to our first point, modern composites permit a pancaked pressure vessel that will tolerate the load at an acceptable weight. The materials available prior to now (aluminum) were simply not workable in the design of such a pressure vessel without an enormous weight cost-thus vitiating the efficiency increase of the design and sending costs prohibitively high.
In addition to the materials issues, another factor that made Blended Wing aircraft heretofore infeasible was the fly-by-wire systems needed to solve the stability issues associated with the design. Although Northrop's early flying wings flew without benefit of computers, they did exhibit some nasty characteristics and were very sensitive to center of gravity changes, issues that aren't acceptable in a commercial airliner.
That said, the fly-by-wire systems of today eliminate the stability issues that plagued early designs. For those of you who believe computer controlled and stabilized aircraft are not feasible for service in commercial applications due to safety considerations, look no further than the Airbus A-320 & A-319. Both of these aircraft use full authority fly-by-wire. All control actuators are electro-hydraulic, when the aircraft is in autopilot, the stick does not move when control inputs are made by the autopilot, and the throttles sit fixed in a "cruise" detent-regardless of actual throttle position as seen from the perspective of the engine's fuel distribution unit. Further, the aircraft has full trim authority, constantly trimming to 0 G, with no provision for pilot override. What all of this adds up to is that there is no physical link between the pilot and the control surfaces of the aircraft. When the pilot makes an input, the computer decides if, and how much, a given surface will deflect. Complex as it sounds, it works, and works well, and given the degree of redundancy required of flight-critical systems (10^-9 I believe) for certification, the likelihood of full failure is less than today's direct-hydraulic systems
With these problems solved, the design makes infinitely more sense than the tube and wing designs of old. It is much more fuel efficient, and given the overwing engine mounting, much quieter, as aircraft with engines slung under the wings reflect noise off the wings and back at the ground, whereas overwing mounted engines reflect the noise up. Overwing mounted engines are also less susceptible to ingesting debris, and bird strike on rotation.
In short, the BWB is a better way to design an airplane, and this note only scratches the surface as to the reasons why. We haven't seen them before because they weren't feasible before, but now that they are, let's hope Boeing pulls up their socks and builds one
So they are considering a military version of it?
Oh, surprise. Guess who is funding the development for both the civilian and military versions... That's right, U.S. taxpayers via the Pentagon. Just like the rest of Boeing's civilian aircrafts. Thanks guys! (I guess it doesn't matter though, as every U.S. citizen will be able to afford flying in it...)
Democracy. Now.
Trollings the trolls, "dumbshit". Thanks for showing it works.
HAND.
Consider 799 people all starting off from where you started off, and all ending up where you're ending up. Why bother going, you'll only be stuck with the same boring idiots you were trying to escape from, but then again, you'd have to classify yourself an equally dull and unimaginative individual to want to go to this once quiet and secluded paradise in the first place.
Is it me or do these things look like the "next generation" Vulcan?
No, not that vulcan. The Avro Vulcan that served in the RAF for most of the Cold War...
The Dread Pirate Roberts is here for your soul!
Boy you really are disturbed by this guy. Heh. This is quite entertaining!
The header jpeg says: blended wind body
wind? Did CmdrTaco do the spell checking here? ;)
Comic Book Guy: "There is no Groening in my store."
and more information regarding the history of the BWB design.
http://www.aircrash.org/burnelli/megajet.htm
That's interesting ... my father is/was with Boeing military as a programmer/analyst/admin and his management structure was removed and replaced with MD personnel.
Additionally alot of long-standing Boeing policies got replaced by MD style policies. To this day he's hates travelling for them as he has to expense his stuff and pay any credit interest rather than the way Boeing used to give a daily allowance. I'm stuck expensing my stuff and I can attest to how much I hate having to file expense reports that can take weeks or months to be fully reimbursed.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Although I agree that aerodynamics are prevalent in aeronautics, there's MUCH room for improvements in engines as well. I don't buy the claim of 30+% less energy consumption with only a new design. I bet the engines they intend to use are part of these 30+% as well.
Just look at cars... In less than 5 years, at least in Europe, gas engines have seen their consumption reduced by more than 40% at equivalent power, with close to no progress at all in aerodynamics. Progress has been even more spectacular with fuel engines. Worse, the friction car engines have to face is higher than in the past (higher total weight, larger width of tires, and recently greater height of cars - see the new Honda Civic). Nowadays, all of these improvements are barely applied to aeronautics. They would help at least on non jet thrust powered airplanes, and that means the vast majority of planes out there. But I'm confident that at least part of these improvements (stratified load for example) could be applied to jet-thrust engines as well.
As a side note, sound is energy as well... The noise generated by aircraft engines is awfully high, especially with jet thrust engines, but the vast majority of this noise is due to frictions in the engine itself... Instead of adding isolating material into the plane (which brings in more weight, hence more energy to move that weight), a better way to solve the problem is just to reduce the friction into the engine itself...
I'm just plain stupid!
You sorta glossed over that "properly designed" bit. Every flying wing ever built (and yes, I'm including the B-2 and all of the old Northrop designs) have a small tendency to "hunt" a bit left-to-right, which is part of the problem that killed the old bombers (a two-degree offset in a bombing run was awful for the ballistic bombing of the 1950s, and will make a planeload of passengers a lot more prone to airsickness). The B-2 handles that problem with a lot of computer power, and the BWB will almost certainly have to do the same thing, to a lesser degree (a BWB suffers less from this problem).
Of course, BWBs have been built in the past (one such design in the 1940s, as I recall), but pressurization has been a problem. Building a plane with pressurized cylinder for a cabin is pretty easy. Building a flight-capable structure the size and shape of a hotel ballroom is something else altogether. Modern composites (with custom-designed rigidity and ultra-light weight) probably made more of a difference than the flight computers...
Does it really matter how many passengers a plane can hold? Its not going to reduce the pollution of the world. They won't be able to use these for short commuter hops, or routes where they won't be able to fill the seats. Like millions of people I'm not an avid flyer, but I do know what would get me on a new plane. 2 Things:
1) Get to my destination faster.
2) Increased safty.
Why doesn't anyone build planes targetted for 'apprehensive' passengers? Ones that don't want to sit any longer than they have to on those things, and that would like to travel in something that's safer than say, a pinto. Now, I'm not suggesting that they should make the plane out of foam rubber (although those styrofoam ones that I had when I was a kid, never, ever exploded into a ball of flames) , but if all the buses that crashed in this country exploded into a ball of flames then we would shut down the automaker. When the hindenberg caught fire in mid air, oh the humanity, but how many hundreds of airlines have plummetted into the ground killing all aboard? AT the least start putting protective screens around the engines to keep the ducks out. That being said, they also never get any faster. What's the deal there? They've never gotten faster than the concorde, and those are probably not going to be around much longer. But yet, maybe if people thought they were getting into the batplane all would be well?
I'm thinking an electronic view would be just fine. Either on the back of the seat in front of you, or on one big screen at the front of the room. Since the camera or cameras could be pointed ahead, behind, or down, they would offer a much better view than one gets out the little window. A lounge area would just eat into the seating, which is not something that airlines are going to be interested in.
Another cool thing about no windows is that maybe they could mount all the seats rear facing without bothering anyone, since it is safer. If you have a screen that lets you feel like you are facing "forwards" then maybe people won't mind it.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I submitted this story earlier today, and it gets soundly rejected. Now it gets accepted. I feel like anchovies in the Omelette.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
It looks like the BatJet Tonight on our featured flights, we have Batman, and Batman returns at the choosing of Michael Keaton, our honorary resident pilot.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
All this money and effort when we can just license the plans for Thunderbird 2 from International Rescue.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
The view up at night would be interesting.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
Actually, the window problem might be easily solved... Instead of actually cutting a huge hole in the side of your craft and possibly compromising aerodynamics for passenger comfort, cut a small hole, put a mini camera or multiple cameras outside, and pipe the resultant image to an LCD panel mounted on the corresponding walls of the cabin.
Better yet, if you want to make it really freaky, make the entire cabin an Imax-like event, with the entire cabin (and floor) one big LCD display showing all the outside. Freak out all the passengers!
--hazy memory here, but I think what partially killed off wide spread acceptance of the early wankel, the NSU and earlier mazdasm was a few engineering glitches, plus just not big enough engine, people back then wanted massive V-8's. One, high rpms lead to early engine seal failure and early engine failure. That's been fixed with better design and better materials, but there ya go on that one. Not enough torque. Really crappy mileage. couldn't pass even rudimentary emissions. It works at a low engine weight, that's about it.
Turbines work even better, are super expensive, can run cleaner on even crappier fuels, are super expensive, they would be a better alternative, are super expensive, especially combined into the electric hybrid scheme, but the cost is x-times higher than a comparable piston design. Did I mention super expensive?
Now in the early suzuki motorcycle, the RE5, it worked quite well, but (most) motoheads like the low rpm thump and exhaust tone, showing the cutomer loyalty and logevity to designs like the harley V design. 2-strokes are amazingly more powerful for weight, but again, rank exhaust tone. Absolutely plain jane H-D 100 year old technology, but it sounds and feels "bad". They sell a lot of them, year in and year out.
People buy stuff for the most amazing reasons sometimes, functionality usually isn't at the top of the list. Another notable example-microsoft. A third notable example, voting for a democrat or republican election cycle after election cycle and wondering why government is so absurdly bogus.
"Marketing" is very sophisticated now, selling lies and pretty crap is much easier and more cost effective "profitable" than engineering and building the truth or something better.
/philosophical observations
Compare these two: Boing and the German Horten Go 229 from 1945.
Here's another picture...
-iie1195
All too many posts here are demeaning and belittleing with little to no useful information. Yours had very useful info.
There are window seats. Look at the leading edge of the wing in the picture.
DCMonkey
"Sir, would you like a window, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, aisle, aisle, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, center, or window?"
Personally, if I can't at least *see* a window somewhere, it makes me want to throw up; supposedly, I would be immune to space sickness. Given my 'druthers, it's an acceptable trade-off.
"Sir... for another $50, we can make the LCD in front of you show a view outside the plane, instead of commercials for the entire flight... will that be cash, or charge?"
Personally, I think it'll catch on the same way paid public transportation has caught on -- with the downside that people ride that because they're poor, and poor people don't fly. Or to put it another way, "Not at all".
-- Terry
The obvious answer is to fit big television screens showing what is going on outside, making every seat a window seat.
Yeah. Real obvious. except that it would be DUMB. That'll tack on quite a few dollars to your ticket, as well as take up too much room.
What they really need to do is give the whole plane a glass bottom. Then every seat is a window seat...when you look down.
Your
I want the optional map overlay so I can see where the heck I am.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
The delta wing is only effective at higher speeds is my understanding. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to try to pilot one of these things in crash landing conditions. It probably has no control if its engine is out, like fighter craft and unlike passenger craft. Thats just not safe enough for commercial carrier flight.
They also haven't caught on because flying wing technology has dragged its feet since the advantages have been limited. Add the fact that they are expensive to design and test (especially when your prototypes are crashing all the time), and the only people really left that might be interested is the military.
There is a lot you can do with this technology to make flight faster and more energy efficient, but not really safer or more practical or cheaper.
But "Funny" is just plain cruel!!!!!!
window seats. Considering that there are none.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
The plane doesn't use less fuel than current planes, it uses less fuel than a similarly oversized and ridiculous AirBus.
that's interesting. if you can suck cock as well as you can whine, i've got a portrait of grant ready for ya!
The Current market is a total abberation. The current long-term trend is that fewer airports will be built and even fewer can be increased in actual size (gates may be increased, or runways may be re-designed, but overall size is still limited). This means that future flights must carry more ppl/cargo for most routes between these large airports.
Next clue, is that ppl are money losing operations. The real money is based on cargo, for which they are still filling all aircrafts. With this aircraft, which will be available in about 6-10 years, the airlines would simply reconfigure to have fewer seats and more cargo spaces (known as a combi).
One of the problems is that ppl don't think long-term. When stapleton was started back in 1920's, everybody swore that mayor stapleton was screwey for building an airport so far away from the city and so huge. Within 60 years, it became the sixth largest airport. Not bad. When DIA was being set up by Pena, everybody said it was too far away, and is way to huge. We are building our sixth runway and it is as close to Denver as most other airports are to their respective cities. BTW, as to the size, we can fit Atlanta and Dallas-Ft. Worth and another airport within it. I suspect that in about another 15 years, ppl will rename the airport after pena and will also say that he did not think big enough.
Boeing, fielding a flying-wing-type design?? Sheesh... Boeing is the reason these sorts of planes weren't commonplace 50 years ago!!
Listen, children, to today's aerospace history lesson....
Waaaay back in the late 1940's, Boeing was the darling of the newly formed US Air Force, on the strength of their sturdy, functional WWII bomber designs (B-17, B-29).
However, they were not the only manufacturer capable of designing high-capacity long-distance aircraft.
One of the sucesses of the WWI aircraft industry was a startup called Northrop Aircraft. Led by the brilliant and iconoclastic designer John Northrop, they had started with nothing but ideas, but by the end of the war had already provided one remarkable aircraft to the war effort, the US' first dedicated radar-equipped night fighter, the P61 Black Widow, which decimated Japanese airpower in the latter stages of the war.
John Northrop was well versed in our enemies' aircraft design efforts. He was particularlry intrigued by the work of Germany's Horten brothers, who did pioneering work on "flying wing" aircraft. Much like Boeing's "blended body/wing" designs, there was no separate fuselage; the entire aircraft contributed to lift, and hence were astonistingly efficient.
(Aside: the Hortens also experimented with the use of evading technologies. Their early wings were built of plywood, but their shape, with no corners, no edges, no right-angle "reflector" areas between tail fins or between fuselage and wing, made them unusually hard to detect on the primitive radars of their day. The Hortens added conductive layers of charcoal to the plywood layup, reducing the already low signature dramatically, creating the world's first "stealth" aircraft.)
In 1940, after the defeat at Dunkirk, the US Army Air Corps was convinced that Britain would soon be overrrun by Germany, and realized that it had no way to strike at European targets from North America. They were desperate to develop a bomber that could reach the Germans if England fell. So they put out an open competition for a transcontinental bomber.
Boeing had already designed a pressurized, high-altitude bomber, the B-29, which later in the war would help decimate Japan, both with conventional ordnance as well as the the first atomic bombs. They offered up an improved version of the B-29 to the competition. (yawn)
Another established airframer, Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (later Convair), borrowed heavily from Boeing's B-29, but proposed a much larger, eight(!)-engine monstrosity, the YB-36, IMHO one of the most homely aircraft ever laid out on paper.
Northrop, on the other hand, shot for the moon. They proposed a radical flying wing design, far larger and more sophisticated than the Horten designs. For the sort of long ranges missions the USAAC was proposing, the efficiency of the flying wing gave it a distinct edge. With a weight similar to the B-29, it had the range of the far larger Convair design, with the same bomb capacity. Northrop had already built experimental flying wings; they folded their accumulated experiment into an amazing prototype, the four-engine YB-35.
Suffice it to say, the USAAC wasn't all that open-minded to such a radical design. Boeing's design was a non-starter. Plus, at the time the congressional delegation from California had leadership positions in key appropriations committees... so the huge, ugly, inefficient B-36 got the nod for full production.
But that wasn't the last of Jack Northrop, or his flying wings.
Almost before the ink had dried on Japan's surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri, tensions with the USSR had escalated to the point where the US military had to consider yet another intercontinental war scenario, but this time the ranges were even longer, up over the North Pole. Hence, another design competition.
Convair's B-36 proved to be a disappointment; even retrofitted with newer turboprop engines, it didn't have the sort of speed and range the new US Air Force needed.
Boeing went back to the well yet again, with a technologically modest design; huge, conventional winged airframe, with four pairs of new turbojet engines to get it off the ground.
Northrop went back to their YB-35, refined the design with the results of the extensive testing they'd done on flying wings since the YB-35, scaled it up for enough volume to carry the bombload and fuel required (and then some!), and replaced the prop engines with turbojets, to create the YB-49.
By all accounts, technologically the YB-49 cleaned up. Northrop was so enthused by their success, they set about designing commercial passenger and cargo versions.
But once again, politics won out.
The details are a but hazy, but Boeing lobbied all the right people very heavily, and in a decision that surprised the entire industry, their design was chosen to become the first nuclear-era strategic bomber: the B-52. Northrop was howling mad, and were quite public with their displeasure.
Just to make the whole affiar that much more scandelous, the Department of Defense sued Northrop, claiming that since the YB-49 was designed for them, they owned the design. They won, and the blueprints vanished from history, precluding the commercial version from ever seeing the light of day. The prototypes and test aircraft were ordered cut up for scrap, to prevent Jack Northrop from embarassing the Air Force with a better plane.
Dont' get me wrong, the B-52 has proved to be an amazing aircraft; whiel far from efficient, it's sturdy enough to allow almost endless modifications, and that has allowed it to survive as a front-line weapons platform even today, 50 years after it's first flight.
But stop and think for a moment where we might be today if the better plane had won, validating the general design. If Northrop's commercial models had been allowed to compete with the more conventional early Boeing and Lockheed airliners.
Yeah, the Blended Wing/Body looks radical in the current context. But it shouldn't.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
Remove the tail, remove the rudder, yep I'd say the thing would be a little unstable. Make it a swept flying wing and the thing will Dutch roll like a falling leaf.
One of the more costly part of an aircraft is the takeoff.
Engines are geared up.
Gears have to be designed to take the full load, and fuel.
Parts have to be designed for taking its heaviest stress.
It has always struck me that a ground based launch system that would accelerate an aircraft to 150-200 knots would be the ideal approach. This would allow the aircraft to carry less fuel wight. So is boeing/airbus working on this?
Flying Wing type aircraft have been around since WWII. Gotha, a German aitcraft manufacturer had built working prototypes of it's Ho-229 flying wing bomber by 1944 (the allied forces recovered some in various stages of construction).
The only thing *new* here seems to be the fact that they're applying this design philosophy to passenger aircraft (and somehow I think that's probably been tried before too).
David de Groot Snr Systems Engineer
Looks like the BatJet? It looks less like the BatJet than the B-2 does.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Various flying-wing and other sort of blended body/wing designs have been proposed before (see my other post), but in the commercial market, one thing had always been a problem: existing infrastructure.
Remember the last time ya went to the airport? The skyways are designed to attach to the *side of the fuselage*. The Boeing blended body/wing design doesn't have a nice cylindrical body, and hence many of those skyways couldn't accomodate them.
If they're smart, commercial versions of this design will have a short (~12'-15') cylindrical section at the front that'll allow existing skyway systems to work without modification. Otherwise, they'll be *real* limited in which airports they can operate at. The additional wingspan compared to a 747-400 could be a problem, too...
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
You should post as AC. Then we wouldn't see that it's the same guy with nothing better to do but engage cowards day-after-day-after-day.
Actually, the pilots never got near the plane until after it was fueled. However, plenty of fuel technicians were horribly disfigured. At least two civilians were partially disolved when the drop tanks (which were emptied by takeoff) fell near them and ruptured.
I think if passengers and cargo operators are willing to give the blended-wing body airplane a chance to succeed, the plane will definitely have some major advantages.
First, the plane uses substantially less fuel on a seat-mile basis than even the Airbus A380. This means the BWB could carry 200-250 more passengers per plane for the same range as the A380-800 (8,000 nautical miles). If Boeing is willing to keep the passenger capacity at around 550 passengers the plane could achieve perhaps the last major goal of commercial aviation, the ability to fly between London, England and Sydney, Australia non-stop in both directions year around (the distance is about 9,000 nautical miles on a Great Circle route).
Second, because the engines are located on the back of the plane, this could mean lower noise levels, meeting the upcoming ICAO Stage IV noise standard easily.
Third, since the entire plane's shape becomes a lifting surface, that could mean the BWB will probably need less runway lengths than the A380-800. Also, the BWB's landing gear placement will also mean compatibility with today's airport taxiways.
Fourth, because the BWB's length from front to back is about the same as a 767-300, a simple incorporation of folding wingtips could mean the BWB can easily fit into airport parking gates now used by the 747--no need to build parking gates that comform to the 80 x 80 meter standard that the A380 will require (an very expensive proposition for many airports).
Finally, because of the unique interior volume area of the BWB, Boeing could easily design much more efficient seating areas and airlines could put in large lounge areas or for the first time turn First Class seating into roomettes like you see on railroad sleeping cars.
Let's face it folks. Air travel is going to continue to increase in popularity, and given the space restrictions and noise abatement rules at today's airports the BWB could become the new queen of the skies by 2015.
A plane with a 289 foot wingspan could easily fit in a 262x262ft square, so long as it didn't pull straight in.
And even if they did need to fit in the square straight in, if the reasoning behind the max wingspan is perpendicular distance from wingtip to the door where the ramp attaches, it is trivial in this design to have the doors be arranged so that is not a problem.
And even THEN, airports change their requirements all of the time. I don't see too many double-decker ramps right now, but airports will have them before the new Airbus comes out.
Airports lining up to have this plane service it are the least of this things worries.
Actually, the blended-wing body has a two aerodynamic advantages over the A380.
First, because the entire plane is a natural lifting body, this means shorter runway requirements than the A380.
Second, because of the BWB's shape, a simple incorporation of folding wingtips could mean the BWB could fit into airport parking gates that now service the Boeing 747 easily. This is because instead of concentrating the usable interior space in a tube fuselage you have a huge amount of interior space width-wise.
http://www.aircrash.org/burnelli/bwb_origin.htm
Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
I program them. If that won't teach you not to trust them, nothing will.
...only two of the planes on page actually flew.
The HE-162 few fully tested, and was to be built in number and flown on suicide mission by Hitler youth pilots. [Un]fortunately, we steamrolled the factories in our march across Europe. The planes were build with proven engines - they were basically improved buzzed bombs with better handling.
The DO-435 likewise was a suicide plane. However, the germans never flight tested one. The Japanese, however, procured the designs directly from Germany, and built a limited number of Hohei suicide planes which only saw limited success. They were too expensive to manufacture, and japans industry was already turning out planes capable of such attacks.
Neither of those were all wing designs. That page kicks ass though, it's hard to find solid reference on Luftwatha hardware, especially the bleeding edge concept stuff.
...just kidding...slashdot is troll land though. I vent over here, and try to keep my more meaningful intellectual property elsewhere.
Great. They've finally re-invented the Northrop Flying Wing, first built back in 1941!!! here is a picture of one... look familiar?
I saw this stuff when it was on the drawing board. Nothing new. Call me when it can fly sideways at mach+ while doing an 80-degree vert w/o making the pilot go blind I'd be impressed. Otherwise show it on Junkyard wars on Discovery.
Phear The Phat Penguin
What they really need to do is give the whole plane a glass bottom. Then every seat is a window seat...when you look down.
I hope people modded that up for "funny".
Glass bottoms would make every landing a piss-your-pants roller-coaster adventure, especially for those already afraid of flying.
Glass bottoms also "tack on quite a few dollars to your ticket" as they're not very practical.
I'll take a good in-flight movie and a stiff drink over a window seat any day.
-ez
while not having a window may seem like a drag, what about placing windows above and below the plane? This may sound like a frightening idea, but the view would rock! Plus, almost everyone could get a window seat.
Another example that graphic designers are off in their own technologically-naive world. Hope they're not actually Boeing employees ;(
The masthead: http://www.boeing.com/phantom/bwb.html
Just watching the last PI... RIP.
Anyways, this plane used 'compression lift', ie the wing tips folded down in flight (flight at Mach3+, mind!!!) and trapped air under the wing for more lift. That's a BIG plane too!
This has nothing to do with BWBs, but damn, it's a nice plane!
The Wankel engine may have failed in commercial automotive production, but it powered aircraft around the world for decades. This went for both civilian and military applications.
Perhaps its just me but doesn't this plane bear STRIKING resemblance to the B2 Stealth Bomber??
Window seats are the worse with current planes: you have no leg room, reduced head room due to the curvature of the bode of the plane, and usually you're close the to engine (noise!).
Roller coaster ride ? Probably not. At least, not worse than with current planes.
Emergency evacuation ? In ideal condition (rested passengers, perfect lighting, no panic, etc) when tested by FAA, evacuation is done on time only 75% of the time. Evacuation of an airplane is a big joke with current technology.
Note: IANAPilot (but my father in law is one)
The modern-day concept for the BWB dates back to the early 90's when McDonnel Douglas investigated ways of making a 747-class aircraft. A good bit of the research about it and its aerodynamics was done at the University of Southern California. (where there are still reminants of the project simmering on the back burner) The craft was originally envisioned with engines mounted directly on the back of the craft with just B-2 style slit ducts feeding the engines.
This is an aircraft that becomes feasible with the advent of composite technology, pressurization would have been unfeasible otherwise. (Althought that wouldn't be a problem with a freighter version of the BWB)
Window seats? well that's a downside. I bet with some fancy fiber-optic wizzardry everyone can have a window on the world, or just give the people with problems VR headsets wired to the outside world. Glass ceilings or bottoms would be awkward, where would your carry-on baggage go, or for that matter, the plane's landing gear.
If Boeing says it is now feasible it is not for lack of 10 years of study.
I for one, am sure the military would just love this plane. It would be an ideal replacement for the Air Force's aging 707-based transports (40 year old design)
It would replace all the KC-135 Tankers, E-3 AWACS, JSTARS, and the like. All that voluminous useable space and surface area makes steered array radars like AEGIS possible, huge mainframe computers for signals intelligence, Fuel carrying capacity that could actually supply a SUV, Ability to carry hundreds of troops and their gear, and loads upon loads of awkward bulky cargo. It's a general's wet dream.
He teaches an undergraduate aircraft performance course at UC Irvine, and is overall a pretty wonderful guy.
The issue of window seating is a good one, and I can't help but be reminded of the passenger spacecraft in the movie "Fifth Element" (passengers were tucked into Japanese-style hotel coffins). I think of buses, cars, trains, and planes, and there's nothing like that in our transportation system -- there's always a window. Cruise liners are probably different, with some cabins being inside, but I don't know for sure.
... so, might as well put in a window.
In fact, except for the scale width of a cruise liner, all other forms of transport are slim, forcing passengers against the skin of the vehicle
Changing an airframe is a risky game, not just technologically but politically as well. Go get a copy of "American Heritage of Invention & Technology", Spring 2002 issue (ISSN 8756-7296) and read up on the development of the Pregnant Guppy and Super Guppy airplanes. The 'Guppies were built to transport the Saturn rocket stages, and they have a remarkably bulging upper airframe that the experts were vociferous about not being workable. It's good to see that Boeing (other than the labor-fscking outfit that it has become) is willing to build another kind of commerical airframe.
Why not have another kind of airframe? We have small prop and jet planes for specialized demand, and some large props, but primarily passenger demand is met by the standard commerical jet airframe. Doesn't the Concorde have a market? Sure it does. Why not then spice up the market with a small fleet of high-capacity BWB carriers, offering lower fares under its umbrella of efficiency?
Or just wait for high-speed rail to cross Amer -- ha, haa! I couldn't keep a straight face when I said that!
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
You appear to be confusing pressure suits with cabin pressurization. Pressure suits are used primarily to reduce the effect of g forces introduced in high speed turns. In a plus-G turn, "centrifugal force" caused blood to want to rush toward the lower extremities, depriving the brain of its oxygen supply and potentially leading to G-LOC, or g-force-induced loss of consciousness (aka blackout, or grayout in a less severe form).
Cabin pressurization is used in commercial aircraft to provide oxygen for respiration at relatively normal atmospheric levels. Stictly speaking cabin pressurization is not necessary, and you can get sufficient oxygen from an oxygen mask. Small airplanes may carry actual bottled oxygen, but transport-category aircraft usually generate emergency oxygen through a chemical reaction only if it becomes necessary. However, if cabin pressurization were to be lost at a typical cruising altitude for a commercial airliner, people would not explode, they'd merely need to don their oxygen masks. (I suspect their ears would hurt like hell when they equalized, though ;-)
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Look, the market will shake things out, and everything is going to be just fine. If there are true and significant costs savings to these airplanes, they will find their way into the marketplace en masse; if not, then they won't. If the current airlines can't afford to buy new planes (which is silly, they buy new planes all the time; they can't very well fly a plane until the wings fall off), then new airlines will rise up in the marketplace, sieze the opportunity to offer the same service at lower rates, and force out the old carriers.
It's possible that a new airline would even adopt the Southwest model. Southwest only buys one kind of airplane. All the other carriers have a wide variety of aircraft, so they have to train their mechanics on multiple types, and they have to stock parts for every type (tying up a lot of cash). Southwest, having only one model of aircraft, is highly efficient in their maintenence; everyone is trained on one aircraft design, and the maintenence departments only have to stock parts for one type of aircraft. A new carrier entering the marketplace could have a) a much more cost-efficent airplane, and b) a much more efficient maintence model, if they only bought this one kind of plane.
I could easily see such an airline rising to prominence in very short order, in spite of the current economic climate in commercial aviation.
You're absolutely right, I didn't have anything better to do today. I had plenty of time to post on Slashdot at work while I was waiting for Redhat to install. It takes a loooooooooooong time.
"Derp de derp."
I recently flew an Airbus from Seattle to Copenhagen, and every seat had a personal monitor tha showed a selection of movies, and also featured a camera that looked forward (VERY boring) and a camera that looked down from the aircraft (very interesting). This kind of technology is not cost prohibitive or only for first class... each and every seat has them. The reason you dont see Boeings or MD-X with them is because you are flying the same planes that were built in the 70s or earlier, in some cases. No one knows how long the curent aicraft will last, but their delivered with a 50 year lifespan and designed for twice that...
Another thing, ive seen some aircraft testing before, and let me put it sweetly: the pilot is far and away the most dangerous thing on any aircraft. of all the things that could fail, the craft itself is probably the least likely to do so. I trust the design and construction of any boeing, or MD or airbus craft I step foot in.
The Really Big Civilian Cargo Aircraft comes around every once in a while, but thirty years after the C-5, nobody has built one. If you really need one, there's an Antonov-225 you can charter; once in a while, someone needs to move something bulky and does. But there's not that much demand.
There's an optimal speed for a subsonic aircraft of a given size. The Boeing 747 is close to optimal for a transport. Bigger aircraft have been built, but they're military, where the performance penalty is accepted in exchange for being able to carry tanks. This blended-wing thing might be a way to get more payload without running into the scaling problem.
As a passenger aircraft, though, cabin layout will be a big problem. In theory, ride quality should be, too; being subjected to roll when far from the roll axis is not fun. But in an aircraft this big, you're not going to be seeing big angular accelerations in roll.
Dr. Kroo was one of the only academics to work closely with the inventor of an even more radical concept called the Oblique All Wing (aka Oblique Flying Wing) Supersonic Transport. The OAW SST concept originated in the 1940s with supersonics pioneer Robert Theo Jones (who preferred to be called "RT Jones").
I became interested in Jones' concept when an article (very similar to the one available online from Hiller Museum of Aviation) appeared in "The West" magazine in the early 90s. The thing that hooked me about the idea was that RT Jones had originated the supersonics models for swept wings used for all of aviation and had come to the conclusion that:
- The optimal supersonic wing was an ellipse with no body that tilted into the wind more and more as it went faster and faster -- an amazingly simple and elegant concept.
- The price per passenger mile for a trans-Pacific flight would be no more than for a 747 even though the flight time would be half.
He said he couldn't get anyone to take his idea seriously (including himself at first) because it wasn't bilaterally symmetric. No one thought it could be stable but that's not what the equations said.Having hooked me at the time I was most active in aerospace politics I decided to look into why the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA Ames wasn't being utilized by the Stanford crew under the ultimate mentorship of RT Jones (who it was obvious to me, was nearing the end of his functioning life). As it turns out there were some problems with NASA HQ not wanting to have confusing signals sent to Congress about which direction NASA was going to go with its High Speed Civil Transport program. There were funds at stake here. At one point NASA Ames attempted to take a small part of its "discretionary" budget and fund the supersonic wind tunnel runs of a model of the OAW SST, but when it did so NASA HQ got "wind" of it and not only forbade the research but docked NASA Ames an equal amount of money in the next year's "discretionary" budget.
When I heard about this, I became angry.
I plunked down some dough and flew RT down to meet with Congressman Ron Packard (R 43rd district CA) and discuss the situation. We got some other Congressmen to look at the situation a bit as well. The real clincher didn't happen until I discovered the person with the most intimate knowledge of the supersonic modeling equations was going to work for Airbus after having been trained by RT Jones at Stanford. This gave me the leverage I needed to push the "American Competitiveness" buttons with the Congressmen -- and I did just that.
This had repercussions.
The initial result was a specific line item in the NASA bill. This was to send a signal to NASA HQ that they weren't to stop the supersonic windtunnel testing from going forward at NASA Ames -- that the OAW SST model from Stanford and RT Jones would be experimentally tested against the equations. The second result was that someone's head was going to roll for letting the cat out of the bag about NASA HQ's bad behavior. I think the guy who got demoted was Tom Gregory even though he wasn't the source of the dirt -- so I have to apologize to him for the consequences of my rather heavy-handed politics -- but the consequences for the testing were at least a little good.
The tests got run, finally.
RT Jones was pretty sick the last time I talked to him -- and discouraged. The fact is he was within a few years of dying of a prolonged illness. He didn't think it was worth pursuing the OAW SST anymore -- that a subsonic 747 style jet could be made more comfortable for the long flight. It was sad hearing him talk that way about his brain child but it was understandable given the life-long struggle for acceptance of the idea and his weakened state. Nevertheless, the idea remains an intriguing if not viable one -- and someday I hope there is at least a FedEx next-business-day robotic package OAW SST fueled by methane -- the system I first thought would be viable.
Seastead this.
... and then they all run over to the extreme left side of the plane and start jumping up and down.
What happens to the airplane's stability? Can the control system cope with such intentional malignant weight shifts?
First, one major problem boeing has is this:
Everyones been in turbulance right? Ever watch the end of the wing tips flex ~20 feet in bad turbuleance? Imagine if you were sitting on those wings during turbulence. This is essentially what happens in a flying win passenger craft. This is a problem that has to be solved...
As for the no windows problems. How bout sky lights?
A number of people have made the comment that current airport jetways are not well designed for servicing this type of aircraft. So why not ditch jetways (heck, it's only money...) and replace them with something like Dulles' "mobile lounges" (history of Dulles). Just board on oddly-shaped bus in the terminal building and be ferried out to your plane sitting on the tarmac. Naturally you'd need a small fleet of them, but it might allow for a more flexible airport design in the long term. In the short term, an airline could simply run the shuttle out of a normal jetway (assuming there's space on the tarmac to park the beast...)
This plane comes at a convenient time, considering the revolt of fat people against airlines that want to charge them the price of two tickets because the seats are too small. With a big fat plane like this one, maybe they can make seats wide enough for the People of Size.
The answer to that is modern materials, and construction techniques.
The Burnelli UB-14B airliner of 1935 (and the British OA-1 of 1937) used an airfoil-shaped fuselage with flat sides inline with the outer sides of the twin engines.
The Canadian CBY-3 Loadmaster followed after WW II but no others followed. Burnelli's 'lifting-fuselage' design had reached maturity but remained a concept too far ahead of its time.
Other similar 'lifting-body' fuselage designs include Dyle & Bacalan's DB 70 and DB 71 with three engines. These had a saloon sitting eight at tables in the thickest section.
A more conventional shape, the Junkers G 38 of 1929 had wings of such span and chord that a three passenger cabin was included in the wing leading edge on each side of the fuselage with forward-facing glazed panels. Only two G 38s were built.
-Aircraft builders today have differant materials to work with.
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(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
I remember a short science fiction story from the pulp era,
in which rocket-plane passengers had individual View-screens
to show them the terrain over which they were passing.
-We're slowly catching up to the concepts of fiction!
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(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
'ten Muslim guys jumping up and down on left side of the plane' may be malignant but that kind of weight shift on a 800 passenger aircraft would be insignificant!. But still, (just to be safe) in ten years time flight schools should watch out for quiet bearded men who want to be able to fly but don't want to be able to land.
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(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
What happens when Richard Reid Jr., blows up a bomb in his shoe? What happens to a blended body in this case? There have been examples of survivable aircraft terrorist attacks where a hole was blown in the fuselage but the aircraft was able to land...now what happens when the entire aircraft IS the wing?
I can just picture John McClane (Bruce Willis), wounded and tired, trugging through the snow from emergency-slide to emergency-slide all around a giant 800 passenger aircraft calling out "Holly! Holly! Holly!"....
... and she hears his voice but can't see him amoung the hundreds of people on the ground!
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(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
Waaay back in 1948, Northrop Crop had developed a similar passenger aircraft. I dont see what's so new about this design from Boeing.
Info about the Northrop flying Wing:
http://www.danford.net/paxwing.htm
correct me if i'm wrong but the stealth bomber is a blended wing design correct?
Well I can't see the link because "bandwidth limit exceeded."
...but if it what I think it is I thought that idea was abandoned. Not because of stability problems but because of the centrifigal forces the passengers on the outside edges would feel as the aircraft turn and banked. :-P
Are a lifting body(LB) and a delta wing the same idea? The Space Shuttle and the new rescue/escape vehicle for the International Space Station are lifitng body aircraft.
Steve Austin(no not the wrestler you youngins!) crashed his LB so can you imagine 400 six-million-dollar bionic people?!?! But then I guess you'd get a volume discount from Oscar Goldman and the OSI
I am suprised at the negativity. Is there something I don't know about Boeing, or are we just down on all Seattle area tech companies?
Many of the more reasoned objections are airport and infrastructure oriented. This is sensible since the 380 will clearly have issues in this regard. However, it is worth remembering that this is a long-haul airliner. Midway, or La Guardia, or Logan are not going to see these planes, except when they are flying over. There are probably less than 100 airports in the whole world where these planes make sense. But in those places, they make A LOT of sense.
Right now, gates are like slots along the frontage of the terminal. More slots = more capacity. All the access to the plane happens along its length. Have you ever seen a 747-400 on a quick international turnaround? Its like the queen with her minions buzzing around. Speed of turnaround is partly limited by the amount of access available, i.e. access capacity. A 747 has multi-decks, but there are only a few access points to each. The 380 exacerbates these issues by trying to fit more passengers and cargo into the existing ifrastructure capacity, with little extra access capacity in the airframe design.
The BWB has the chance to be more efficient BECAUSE it is so radically different. The BWB can offer access across the entire front, AND the entire top and bottom, at the same time. The access capacity is potentially multiples of that on a 747 or 380. As a result, turnaround times might be cut in half. Passengers would use mulitple access points, possibly through the front, or even the top. At the same time, cargo, fuel etc. could have free acces to the entire underside of the airframe. It might even be possible to use an "assembly line" for vast cost savings.
The point is that there are wide opportunities for new and more efficient systems. So rather than a constraint, the plane's size and configuration could prove a huge advantage to the airlines and the airports.
"It also has one potentially serious drawback: almost no passenger would have a window."
Two words: glass bottom =)
Or failing transparent aluminium, a plexiglass portal hole in the floor.
If the landing gear can turn 360 and is self-powered by electric motors, you would just get close to the gate, turn off the engines (saving some workers' hearing in the process) then drive the plane into the parking square diagonally, so the plane fits in the diagonal of the square.
;)
That's right, Boeing, you heard it here first.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Everybody was afraid of the 707 and the number of ppl that would be lost when a crash occured.
Then during the late 60's, early 70's everybody commented about how big 353 ppl were on a 747-100. Many ppl swore that they would never fly the 747. My father (a retired american airline captain who finished with the MD-11) swore he would never fly on the A-380. I suspect that wether the A-380 or the BWB, he will fly on both. 800 in american/europe configuration is still smaller than the 1200 that JAL will load on these aircraft.