
Airbus has unveiled a bird-like conceptual airliner design - bjoko
https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news/en/2019/07/airbus-conceptual-airliner-to-inspire-new-generation-engineers.html
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erokar
Christ, that's ridiculous. I love it.

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throwanem
Actually a pretty smart design; raptors' spread primaries provide considerable
extra lift. It probably can't be built as depicted without some pretty
impressive materials science work and maybe a novel discovery or two, but
that's okay; it isn't intended to be built as depicted in the first place.
I'll be interested to see if anything comes out of it over the next couple of
decades.

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baybal2
1\. Wingtips — many dissimilar winglets will create different wingtip
vortices. Are few smaller vortices better than one big?

2\. The centre of gravity seem to be off

3\. Yaw control - I believe it will have to be synthesized by fly by wire, as
there are no prominent rudder

4\. Wingspar???

5\. Chassis — gonna be behind the centre of mass? It still looks to me way to
narrow for a plane with such long wing.

6\. High wing design — should have lots of cargo space at expense of passenger
fuselage volume

7\. Quad engine? — why not 2?

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Gibbon1
> Quad engine? — why not 2?

Because thrust is proportional to mass flow times delta v. But power is
proportional to mass flow times delta v squared. So the way to increase
efficiency is to increase the mass flow as much as possible. A limiting factor
is the prop/fan diameter <\--> ground clearance. See the 737 MAX. But more
prop/fans means more engines. And the complexity costs that come with that.
Hence the popularity of two engine airliners.

I think there is a realization that with hybrid electric designs, you can have
one engine + battery driving four prop/fans. My read on the depiction is an
aircraft with one engine and four props.

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etothepi
And this racing stripe i feel is pretty sharp.

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rdtsc
It's interesting how a propeller design would be quieter. I always associated
those types of planes with noise. Is the noise mostly from the engines and not
the propeller blades themselves?

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NikkiA
It's not just any propeller:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_propeller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scimitar_propeller)

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JanSolo
Where's the rudder? How do they propose to control yaw without a rudder?
Perhaps those long winglet-feathers can be modulated for yaw control?

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djtriptych
The article does mention that the feathers would be active control surfaces,
so yes.

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de_watcher
Doesn't flap the wings though...

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mey
tl;dr It's not an actual design.

"While not intended to represent an actual aircraft, Airbus’ “Bird of Prey” is
based on realistic ideas – providing an insight into what a future regional
aircraft could look like."

“Our ‘Bird of Prey’ is designed to be an inspiration to young people and
create a ‘wow’ factor that will help them consider an exciting career in the
crucially-important aerospace sector,” explained Martin Aston, a senior
manager at Airbus.

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lame-robot-hoax
Martin Aston should quit his job at Airbus and get a job at Aston Martin.
Martin Aston working for Aston Martin only seems fitting, right?

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sadjad
I don't know, it seems backwards to me.

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slowmovintarget
Do you want ornithopters? ...because this is how you get ornithopters.

(This makes the Dune fan in me happy.)

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kmano8
Read the title as "Airbnb has unveiled..", and got pretty nervous.

