Blended-wing Airliner
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.
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