Blended-wing Airliner

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:22:19 -0500, "Gig 601XL Builder"
wrDOTgiaconaATsuddenlink.net wrote in
:

Phil wrote:


Would you give up your window seat if they charged you 35% less to
sit in the middle?

The middle would be by far the most comfortable seats on the plane.
Those window seats are going to have a interesting ride.


The way I see it, only the vertical accelerations resulting from bank
initiations may possibly be objectionable to passengers. The rate of
bank initiation is under (auto)pilot control, so theoretically it
could be kept below that threshold.

Do you see ride quality problems in straight and level flight for
passengers seated well displaced from the longitudinal axis of the
aircraft?


There's a big difference from being displaced 10 feet from the center of a
20ft 747 cabin and being 40 ft from the center. And sure the (auto)pilot has
control of the bank but he still has to land and I've been in wide body
airliners that did a significant amount banking on final during bad weather.
If you build a new aircraft that is limited more than current airliners to
the weather they can land in a lot of the fuel savings is going to be lost
when they have to go around or divert while all the other planes are
landing. It won't take many of these to make people not want to fly the new
airplane.