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Boeing Blended Wing Body Aircraft

Posted by michael on from the meet-george-jetson dept.

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.

5 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. Stability by bryan1945 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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......

    --
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  2. Who would fly on it? by s20451 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

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    1. Re:Who would fly on it? by negativethirsty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I sure would. Tickets would be cheaper, or I would get to where I'm going faster. You might think its untested but its really not. They've been kicking this design around for a long long time (see future shuttle images). As for evacuation in a crash, think about what happens when a typical airliner today crashes, how it breaks apart at the wings dumping fuel all over to ignite. If i had to guess, as i am since i have no real data, this body style would be much much stronger. Stress would not be concentrated around the area where the wings meet the "tube" of the airframe, it would also lessen cyclic stress as the force is more distributed.

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  3. In today's market, this is a step back by guttentag · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It is conceived to carry 800 passengers... This is almost twice the passenger capacity of the Boeing 747-400... This design would reduce fuel burn and harmful emissions per passenger mile by almost a third in comparison to today's aircraft.
    So it's one third more efficient on fuel costs when carrying twice as many passengers.

    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?

  4. Re:what exactly is the revolution here? by Fnord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    One issue is that all of the flying wing designs out there (and this is closer to a flying wing than a delta wing, and there is definitly a difference between the two) are on small craft. Something about the design lends to inherrently unstable craft, that take a much more precise control system to keep stable. Its just now that computer control of multiple flaps is precise enough that something like this in this large of a formfactor is feasable.