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Funky Flying Wing Rotates 90 Degrees To Go Supersonic
Big Hairy Ian writes "An aircraft that resembles a four-point ninja star could go into supersonic mode by simply turning 90 degrees in midair. The unusual 'flying wing' concept has won $100,000 in NASA funding to trying becoming a reality for future passenger jet travel. The supersonic, bidirectional flying wing idea comes from a team headed by Ge-Chen Zha, an aerospace engineer at Florida State University. He said the fuel-efficient aircraft could reach supersonic speeds without the thunderclap sound (PDF) produced by a sonic boom — a major factor that previously limited where the supersonic Concorde passenger jet could fly over populated land masses."
A link to an article that makes you answer a poll about the RNC before letting you RTFA? Lame.
First Post.
Zha is at the University of Miami.
A click farming site is now Slashdot's idea of a story?
Here is one that doesn't make you answer a lame question:
http://www.livescience.com/22828-supersonic-flying-wing-nasa.html
It would be one thing if the "innovationwhatever.com" site wrote the article. They didn't. Yet they feel the need to try to profit of it. Utter douchebags.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
That'll get them one workstation, one software license of their choice, and a PhD student for a year, tops.
Also, wouldn't a flying-wing aircraft designed for passenger travel be incredibly inefficient in terms of space usage? Look at the B2 - most of its body is the wing and engine structure and a tiny cockpit for 2 crew members, plus a bomb bay. Imagine trying to scale up the B2 to fit 100+ people - it'd be gargantuan. It could handle the weight just fine (the B2 carries 50,000lbs of ordinance already), but to fit that many people comfortably would be quite a feat. IANA aerospace engineer so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Rotation of the thrust should be interesting. Wonder what the change in perspective does to the pilot and passengers and how fast the rotation is.
And no, I didn't read the slideshow.
Minimal moving parts, save for the plane itself.
I was still kindof worried when the presentation started to compare the concept to a frisbee.
Which direction does the wing rotate 90 degrees?
In the past some planes could achieve supersonic flight by rotating the whole plane 90 degrees (from level flight) Getting back to subsonic flight was sometimes a bit more difficult...
Funky Flying Wing Rotates 90 Degrees To Go Supersonic
I can hear the promo jingle now...
"Funky flying wing, y'all
Funky, funky flying wing"
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
So you need big enough wings to support them.
For passenger travel you scale it up enough that the people can sit inside part of the wing area. Look up the "blended wing body" design.
I have this boat that rotates 90 degrees when it gets going faster and therefore doesn't generate any wake. It's ecologically friendly and gets great gas mileage.
That is in essence is what this guy is pitching - a plane that doesn't generate a supersonic wake despite the fact it's moving supersonically. Perhaps if the story had some details as to why rotation made any difference other than switching aspect ratios, it might be a bit more believable.
You wanna know the difference between the 1960s and now? In the '60s they built stuff, now we draw stuff on computers.
In other news, Russia announces it has begun working on a radical new ultrasonic bomber design.
in an unrelated story, the entire staff at NASA was found snickering for no obvious reason.
The only problem with sonic booms from the Concorde was that Boeing's own supersonic airliner never worked.
I don't see that being a very popular option. Although if it is as expensive to fly as the Concorde was, there won't be a cattle class for us 99%'ers so maybe everyone will just have two seats (for the price of 20!)?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It will continue to suck until the next stone age.
They'll have to rotate 90 degrees to keep the thrust parallel to the (current) longitudinal axis of the aircraft. During rotation, things could become...interesting. Rotating the engines works SO well on the V-22 Osprey.
Doesn't this remind anyone of a Cylon basestar, specifically, from the reboot series?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The article is nearly useless. Even bringing up scramjet testing in such an article is ridiculous namedropping, and anyone who has actually seen the X51 knows that is has nothing to do with this project except that neither will be flying in this planet in the current state of development.
There are so many questionable things about this concept, I can only assume that Mr. Zha has a second degree in grant writing or bullshittery to get and actual grant for research. And yet the linked presentation is, aside from some math simulation output data, poorer in content than at least half of the undergraduate senior projects in my Aero class back in the early 90s. One of the conclusions is "transition challenging, expected to be stable due to dual symmetric planform similar to flying Frisbee". Holy shit - that may very well be one of the most critical parts of the design. If you can't transition, you simply have a plane with the entire thrust force on a gimbal which can either be subsonic or supersonic. They other issue is the horrifically draggy airfoil shape required for subsonic flight due to the need to maintain symmetry in the supersonic mode. Their solution is either air injection into the flow and/or or slat deployment at speed to produce a proper lifting body - but that's an amazingly draggy way to accomplish such feat.
I wanted to like this - so much that I did read through the broken-english slides to see what novel concepts they discovered. Sadly, this is really a master's level, one or two semester examination of shock wave perceptibly reduction, and at some point somebody's non-technical room mate told them it looked more like an airplane if they flew it sideways.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I think the most challenging part about this aircraft is vehicle dynamics. For stable flight the center of mass needs to be forward of the 1/4 chord section of the subsonic wing, and for supersonic flight it should be forward of the 1/2 chord section of the supersonic wing. That alone means this is plane is inherently unstable and flies like a leaf from a tree without software compensation. This doesn't begin to address the transition from subsonic to supersonic, where at some point you must have flow at 45 degrees over both supersonic and subsonic surfaces, stably; the plane would have a tendency to pitch and roll under this maneuver.
I am an aerospace engineer..
Wakeless launches (first link, of many found via google).
Looks as though it should spin as it flies. Fire shooting out of each corner would be a plus!
Use normal ol' turbo-fans built into the longer wings for take off and landing in the "wide" orientation.
Then, once at about Mach .9 or so, you spin into the "narrow" orientation, where Ramjets built into the shorter wings take over and accelerate the whole mess to Mach 3, 4, 5, 6...
I recall a few years ago reading about Boeing looking at a blended-wing/lifting body design, the X-48. They went as far as producing mock ups of the interior for passenger variants and found that travelers, for whatever reason, didn't like the configuration. This concept takes that layout and make it a whole lot worse with direction of seating changing in flight. Isn't it the same reason seats face forward instead of backwards despite being safer?
For the record, I think people can be rather stupid about that sort of thing considering windows are closed for 90% of the flight. I'm not sure how that arrangement wouldn't be anything but an improvement over being stuck inside a tube.
the aircraft go supersonic in ALL directions.. Gee... maybe there's a reason why most UFOs are circular / spherical. Maybe because the sphere is nature's perfect container....
20120037751, filed 26 April 2010. Not yet issued. . . .
Why, in an economy that is stagnant already due to printing money, not to mention continuing to borrow from China, (our #1 creditor), that we are doing crap like this? This stuff should be done by the private industry who has the skills and ability for research, not fat, bloated government projects that just ensure that our economy still stays in the shitty state it is in.
Paying cash to fatcats for useless projects is not something stated in the Constitution anywhere. This is for companies and private individuals. Yes, stuff like this and landing a hunk of junk on mars might make for great press, but in reality, it is pointless and a waste of economic resources, better used elsewhere, especially during these depressed times.
Swell idea, except:
Both sets of wings have to be strong enough to act like wings- that requires spars and stuff that are usually run through the center of lift. That makes it difficult to fit in stuff like people and cargo.
You can't sweep the wings at your typical 20 to 40 degree angle, which limits your top speed in either mode.
You can't have wings with the usual asymettrical front-back tapers, limiting your lift and lift/drag characteristics.
You can't have a tail, which makes stability and control very difficult.
Otherwise okay.
It seems to me variable-sweep is the ideal in terms of fuel consumption and other factors... not sure why this style is not being pursued these days...
— a major factor that previously limited where Concorde could fly over land masses..."
Not exactly. The major factor that limited Concorde was that it was not invented in the USA, and the Yanks had been unable to build one of their own...
I swear I saw this kind of shit in Popular Science or Popular Mechanics when they both still painted their covers.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Nice idea, but where are we going to find enough Elerium-115 to fuel the thing?