This looks promising, but there are two problems with it for me. I like windows, and the window-seat/seat looks pretty low. It will also be harder on people prone to motion sickness, because if you’re out near a side there will be much more vertical motion when it banks.
21 thoughts on “Blended Wing Airliners”
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“potentially saving airlines billions of dollars and bringing them a step closer to the Holy Grail of zero-carbon flight.”
It is a religion. Hundreds of millions will die. Oops, I mean be net zeroed.
Improved fuel efficiency is a good thing regardless of whether you’re a member of the climate cult.
I hope they bribe the right people. Net Zero is coming faster than people think. At some point, they won’t let people fly.
Improved fuel efficiency is a good thing. So is religion. But when religion starts selling holy water, people point out the bullshit of it. So why not call out bullshit of “zero-carbon flight”. Hell, the majority of the vehicle will be made of carbon fiber. And even if it runs on SAF, it would only be sustainable, not net zero.
Probably just bullpucky to get new tech past the mass media censors. Carbon fiber construction is far from green. As Rand comments, improved fuel economy is a plus given similar performance.
SpaceX’s value add was reusability (as opposed to rebuilding), and a way to get the flight rate up to a reasonable figure.
We already have fully reusable airliners which can run multiple flights per day.
So comparing to SpaceX is disingenuous – the cost reduction (if there is a reduction) might be as large as 5-10 percent, as opposed to SpaceX’s two orders of magnitude.
It’s not nothing, but investors hoping for a high return are likely to be disappointed.
“[The shape] gives the airlines more optionality,” says O’Leary. “The airline industry has become a race to the bottom with respect to comfort. But if you can reduce the fuel burn, you can use the savings to make a more comfortable cabin and create larger seats without as much economic penalty.”
Or – you can use the savings while using the same seats and increase your profitability / improve your airline’s bottom line.
Which is more likely?
Kat and I flew from Heathrow to Dulles yesterday on a British Airways Airbus A380-800. It was both of our first flights on a 380, and I have to say that I now regard it as the absolute apex of airliner. Before the trip, I did a deep dive into its history, and was amazed at the number of technological advances it incorporates – they are too numerous to even cite examples, but all were dedicated to making it a fuel-efficient, passenger-friendly, and very safe aircraft. I don’t see how it can be topped. That was the quietist, most comfortable flight I’ve ever had – and we were in “economy plus” (whatever that is).
Airbus lost its shirt on the A380, having overrun the development budget by a factor of two. Only 254, including three development aircraft, were ever built before production ceased in 2021. Improvements were made along the way, making the aircraft type even more attractive. But Airbus never recouped its development investment, and many early customers cancelled orders due to a downturn in air travel. You’d never know it from our flight, which had all 520 seats filled.
Investors looking to back the BWB airliner will no doubt check out the history of the A380. For such an enormous technical success, it failed miserably with respect to economics.
A guy named Tom Nagle, a colleague of mine at TRW Ballistic Missiles Division back in the 1980s, first introduced be to the BWB in the early 1990s. He had left TRW to join MDAC’s Phantom Works, and they had conceived the BWB back then. Nagle knew that I was developing a tow-launched RLV, and thought the BWB would be ideal for the purpose. He was right, but it was a technological bridge too far for our development plan.
It may be an advance over the A380, but given the multitudinous changes to aircraft design involved, I would bet that the development cost would never be recouped. That’s why MDAC, then Boeing, then NASA have been looking for a government “investor” ever since the BWB hit the back of a napkin. That they have never found one is significant.
Is there a need for massive people movers in the sky? Flexibility of scheduling with ‘smaller’ planes that fit the needs of the particular city-to-city route. Like the Concorde SST it so far looks like a concept looking for a market.
Airports have a fixed number of runways, and there are required minimum separation distances between aircraft. That means there can only be a limited number of arrivals and departures at a given runway over a specified time. This is true regardless of the size of the aircraft to a degree. Very large aircraft require greater separation distances due to their stronger wake turbulence.
The Airbus 380 was designed with this in mind. Unfortunately, other planes like the 787 offered lower per-seat costs and were open to more airports, so not enough 380s were sold to make the plane a success. It’s no longer in production.
A blended wing design offers the potential of significantly reduced per-seat costs due to much lower drag. However, airlines tend to be very conservative and getting them to buy a blended wing design could be difficult. It would likely require modifications to airport gates, and it’s unknown how passengers would respond to the design. The further a passenger is from the aircraft centerline, the greater the movement felt during routine maneuvers, much less the effects of turbulence. Flying wing designs also tend to have narrow center of gravity limits which could make weight distribution more difficult, not only for passengers but for luggage and cargo.
There’s also the expense of developing and certifying any new airliner, much less one with a lot of new technology. It already costs many billion dollars to get a conventional design through the certification process. The FAA is even more conservative than the airlines when it comes to new technology. I seriously doubt you could get a design like this through the process for less than $10-20 billion.
Both engines are placed above the rear section of the lifting body. During a stall they’re going to have disturbed and weak airflow into the inlets, reducing their thrust and thus the nose-down torque they’d been providing. Assuming compressor stall isn’t an issue, they could end up being a net drag and creating a nose-up force during a stall. If so, that could cause a few bumps in the certification process.
And maintenance isn’t going to be thrilled with engine accessibility reminiscent of a tri-jet.
Another concern that popped into mind with just a quick look at that interior. What’s the evacuation route for people in the back in the widest part of the cabin. How fast will they be able to evacuate in an emergency? That’s part of certification as well.
Passenger evacuation requirements are a big deal. Current FAA certification requirements require complete evacuation within 90 seconds with half the exits blocked. Where will they locate the exits on a blended wing design?
Of course I thought of the model I brought to space access that time. Unbelievable how naive I was about how easy it ought to be.
Given the complexity of the shape and how it will react to internal pressure, static and dynamic loads, and aerodynamic interactions, my gut says multiply the 787 development effort by about four or five, since pressure cylinders are simple, subsonic swept wings are very well understood, and the Nth iteration of the same basic airliner shape doesn’t present any real unknowns. Development and manufacture of the 787 cost $22 billion.
I would suggest they first built something the size of a Honda EZ-jet to map out the complexities and show the fuel savings, or even built a small battery-powered drone with a 10-minute flight time.
Aim at the Gulfstream executive jet market. With the blended wing the design could include more room for the passengers and greater range from larger wing tanks in the same footprint. Bonus for marketing as Green™ to the Davos crowd.
Gulfstream customers expect to be able to walk around the cabin. That means the cabin needs to be tall enough (probably at least 6.5 to 7 feet high) to allow that. I don’t know the minimum size for a blended wing plane that will allow that, but it may well be larger than a Gulfstream.
It makes a very pretty picture and everything they say about the aerodynamics and fuel efficiency may be true. Until they get about $10 billion and ten years, all it will be is a pretty picture. Everything above about the market being medium sized planes for point to point is true as well. Maybe if they can enlist a multi billionaire or a government. Otherwise, they need to find a business model without the billions in upfront cost and years, maybe decades, of development and regulatory delay.
I love windows too… but the vast majority of passengers couldn’t possibly give a shit. They pull down the shades and pull out their phones. I.e. it’s definitely not a problem. In fact, given my observations of how my fellow pax actually behave, the company should go all the way and reverse the seats (or at least most of them) for crash survivability. Most people simply don’t care; for them, air travel isn’t a wonder, it’s just a useful but tedious necessity.
Love their totally cynical (and typical) marketing approach: you need our product because EXISTENTIAL THREAT FROM CLIMATE CHANGE!!!!11!!! Hey, whatever works. More power to y’all.
Regarding the rear facing seats, I rode across the Atlantic facing backwards in a C-5A back in 1979. The ride was fine, although that might not be as good in a smaller plane. However, many business jets have half of their seats facing backwards, so that shouldn’t be an issue.
As for their climate change, they’re probably hoping Biden will throw billions of dollars their way to pay for the massive R&D costs of such a plane.
Around 20 years ago, Southwest used to have some rear-facing seats. I got quite familiar with them, because for a couple of months I was commuting almost daily from Phoenix to LA and back.
I like rear facing seats. Also, IMHO, they are safer in a crash.