Blended-wing Airliner

Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will
Boeing ever build something like this? Or will they wait until Airbus
or Embraer or the Chinese or the Russians build one?


http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviatio...cbccdrcrd.html

Phil wrote:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will
Boeing ever build something like this? Or will they wait until Airbus
or Embraer or the Chinese or the Russians build one?


http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviatio...cbccdrcrd.html

Well, you can bet that all the Boeing
engineers would give their collective
left nuts for a 35% increase in fuel
efficiency.

OTOH, the design appears to be more of a
concept, and we all know how few concept
cars make it to production.

Loosing the cylindrical fuse is a huge
strength issue as the article pointed out.
No flapps and steep bank angle for landing
sounds sketchy to me. And the engines don't
appear to exist.

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:55:55 -0700, Phil wrote
in . com:

Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets.

With petroleum at record high prices, by the time someone brought this
design to market, the tickets would cost more not less. :-(

Phil wrote:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will
Boeing ever build something like this? Or will they wait until Airbus
or Embraer or the Chinese or the Russians build one?


http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviatio...cbccdrcrd.html

That website really ought to be called popscifi.com.

In a previous article, Phil said:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will

So only one person out of 40 gets a window seat? I can't see that being
very popular.




--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian
because I hate plants. -- A. Whitney Brown

On Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:24:32 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote:

In a previous article, Phil said:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will

So only one person out of 40 gets a window seat? I can't see that being
very popular.

40 Hommes 8 Chevals. It's starting to make sense.

Don

Recently, Paul Tomblin posted:

In a previous article, Phil said:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will

So only one person out of 40 gets a window seat? I can't see that
being very popular.

That ratio isn't all that different from today's aircraft, is it?

Neil

Neil Gould wrote:
Recently, Paul Tomblin posted:

In a previous article, Phil said:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will

So only one person out of 40 gets a window seat? I can't see that
being very popular.

That ratio isn't all that different from today's aircraft, is it?

Neil

I think 10 accross is about as bad as it gets right now. That means one out
of 5 get a window.

Recently, Gig 601XL Builder wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net posted:

Neil Gould wrote:
Recently, Paul Tomblin posted:

In a previous article, Phil said:
Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But
will

So only one person out of 40 gets a window seat? I can't see that
being very popular.

That ratio isn't all that different from today's aircraft, is it?

Neil

I think 10 accross is about as bad as it gets right now. That means
one out of 5 get a window.

Good point. I was way off in my thinking about this one!

Neil

Phil writes:

Thirty Five percent more fuel efficient. That would translate into
less expensive tickets. And just a fraction of the noise. But will
Boeing ever build something like this? Or will they wait until Airbus
or Embraer or the Chinese or the Russians build one?

Even Scarebus isn't likely to go that far out on a limb, especially for noise
reduction, which isn't as much of a problem as people seem to think, anyway.

I don't see any mention of safety, but I do see a mention of instability. I
seriously doubt that the aircraft would be safer than current aircraft thanks
to its innovative design, and it might be worse. Safety issues--or even a
perception of safety issues--can put an airline out of business.

The whiz kids at MIT have simply run over much of the same ground as many
other engineers in the past. And I'm sure they didn't actually build a
prototype, but instead depended on simulations that might or might not be
accurate.

And Popular Science has been showcasing some rather farfetched (if technically
plausible) ideas for many decades. Sometimes they are right, usually they are
wrong, or at least fairly far off the mark. But that is the nature of
futuristic speculation.