
Airbus unveils 'blended wing body' plane design after secret flight tests - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-airshow-airbus-design/airbus-unveils-blended-wing-body-plane-design-after-secret-flight-tests-idUSKBN20509H
======
inamberclad
BWBs are tempting, but let me state the usual cons mentioned for them.

\- More passengers sit farther from the longitudinal axis, and consequently
experience larger vertical accelerations from turbulence, as well as normal
banking maneuvers.

\- More passengers are farther from the windows.

\- No great place to put a high bypass turbofan.

I'm hopeful that one eventually gets built though, it'll be interesting how
these pan out.

~~~
mrfusion
It would be neat to put windows on the floor. You’re most interested in
looking down anyway.

And otherwise you could have a cool hang out / lounge with nice pa Aramaic
windows and everyone could have turns sightseeing.

~~~
foobiekr
project the open sky on the ceiling

~~~
mrfusion
Don’t forget mrfusions law. “Any screen will eventually show ads”

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abyssin
This will not slash carbon emissions by 20%. Blended wing body will make
flying cheaper, and increase the number of flyers.

~~~
mattlondon
There is talk of a "Frequent Flier" tax that could be used to address this.

Currently 70% of the flights are made by 15% of the population (1). If you
start adding increasing taxes on each additional flight you take, it would
rapidly curtail a lot of the travel I'd expect.

I am sure a lot of us in Europe (and perhaps USA? Not sure if it is as
prevalent) in the past have been guilty of taking a "weekend break" somewhere
that is a 1 or 2 hr flight away where the tickets usually cost something like
£30-40 return on Easyjet or Ryanair (and often cheaper than a taxi to get to
the airport!)

E.g. after 2 flights a year, start adding £50 per flight (so 3rd is +£50, 4th
+£100, 5th +£150 etc etc). Suddenly your £30 return flight from London to
Lisbon/Rome/Dublin/Barcelona/Berlin etc is no longer so absurdly cheap. Put
all the proceeds from the tax into decarbonisation and fast intercity rail.

That would soon make people (myself included) think twice about taking
"frivolous" city-breaks every month or so where you fly out after work on a
Friday and come home again Sunday night ready to be back at your desk on
Monday morning.

1 - [https://fullfact.org/economy/do-15-people-
take-70-flights/](https://fullfact.org/economy/do-15-people-take-70-flights/)

~~~
slazaro
The problem I always see with using taxation to solve problems (to prevent too
many people from doing X), is that you're filtering by socioeconomic status.
You're making it so that only the richer people can do it, and the poorer
people are screwed once again. It's a simple fix from an institutional point
of view, and it might "solve" the problem, but it just feels wrong to me. Not
that I have a better solution though...

~~~
0xffff2
Welcome to the real world. Besides, how many poor people are flying multiple
times per year anyway? I don't have the numbers, but I would bet that this tax
would be paid overwhelmingly by businesses on behalf of their employees who
travel for work.

~~~
tomatotomato37
And that tax would be absorbed unnoticed in the businesses' expense again
right next to the reciepts for over-priced steak dinners and strip clubs. The
whole reason airlines can get away with charging so much for business class is
because businesses don't generally give a shit if their sales personal are
charging them for in-flight champagne when they go to close a billion dollar
contract. The truth is that you'll have to be more strategic than randomly
throwing a tax at the problem if you want to change the behavior of entities
who already dump hundreds of thousands on maintaing a private jet fleet so
that a C-level doesn't have to wait in line at security.

------
ncmncm
This kind of design could be extremely important as a way to make enough room
on board for hydrogen fuel tankage.

The mass/energy ratio of hydrogen makes it an extremely attractive aviation
fuel. Its lower volumetric density has made it impractical with current
designs, for most potential uses. Lifting bodies enable an elegant resolution
to that problem. After some time it may be considered uneconomical to fly the
old submarines-with-wings airframes.

~~~
taneq
That’s actually a great point, if you can get a lot of extra volume “free“
with a BWB design then it could make hydrogen a more viable airline fuel.

~~~
_archon_
If I have extra volume in the airframe, and I'm using it for fuel tanks, why
wouldn't I use it for conventional aviation fuel and extend the range of my
plane? I can use existing infrastructure, not have to worry about cryogenics,
not have to worry about high pressure fluids...

We know how to use aviation fuels safely now. Although hydrogen is interesting
as a potential fuel, I don't anticipate its use in the near future.

~~~
ncmncm
Existing aircraft have plenty of range already, and would not be able to
(usefully) carry much more fuel anyway.

Existing infrastructure is much less important for long-haul aircraft.
Facilities at just a half-dozen key airports -- say LA, NY, Hong Kong, Paris,
Mumbai, Tokyo -- would suffice to bootstrap it. (Compare to, e.g., trucking,
needing hundreds of stations.)

Aerogel-insulated tankage would make carrying liquid H2 easy and safe.

The value proposition is that a huge fraction of the expense of operating a
long-haul carrier is hoisting the heavy fuel up to 40,000 ft. and keeping it
up there. Enough H2 to get the same range weighs a third as much; the
difference can be used for payload.

H2 can be produced direct from wind or solar when it's windy or sunny
(respectively), and stores up power for peak demand, as well as for aviation
fuel, so there are huge synergies in developing H2 production for multiple
uses.

There is quite enough experience handling LH2 for rocketry. Probably carrying
some LOX or H2O2, too, would enable flying at 60-80000 ft, for even more
efficiency.

Not venting CO2 will matter when that is taxed, as it should be already.

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gumby
The window issue is a red herring -- if leaving them out saves money people
will continue to buy the cheaper tickets. The airlines have proven that over
the past couple of decades.

As for vertical motion, perhaps the same applies: first class will be in the
middle; economy passengers farther out, and fuel, baggage and crew areas will
be farthest from the centre.

------
DrScientist
If you want low carbon transport then [https://www.maritime-
executive.com/media/images/article/Phot...](https://www.maritime-
executive.com/media/images/article/Photos/Vessels_Large/Original/CSCL_Globe_arriving_at_Felixstowe-
_United_Kingdom.f0ce49.jpg) is very hard to beat.

Over a hundreds times better than air....

The problem the airlines face is they are effectively massively subsidize with
tax cuts on fuels and duty free status at airports etc _plus_ their free
environmental dumping of huge amounts of C02.

Air travel and freight is, by and large, is a luxury. Yet people are willing
to let the world burn rather than give it up. I'm sure someone will tell me
there is some scientific name for such illogical behavior.

~~~
jiofih
That’s hardly low carbon, container ships alone emit almost 20% of the CO2 we
are putting into the atmosphere. And Cruise ships emit almost 4x as much as
air travel per passenger.

~~~
monk_e_boy
Per KG of stuff moved it's pretty good.

~~~
DrScientist
Exactly - you need to decouple efficiency of mode, from amount of transport
done in that mode if you want to make sensible decisions about which mode is
best.

Or put it another way - if all that cargo going by sea went by air C02
emissions would be 100x more.

Obviously saying sea travel is massively more efficient doesn't obviate the
need to reduce that as well.

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rsynnott
Like all other visually interesting aircraft, it will be quietly abandoned in
a decade in favour of an A350++ or something.

~~~
s_dev
>Such aircraft are complex to control but produce less aerodynamic drag,
making them more efficient to fly.

Fuel effciency is big incentivising factor in the airline industry. If we can
have an AI control the extra complexity involved to bring safety to a par I
can see prototypes being made for further experiments. It is visually
interesting though.

~~~
bangboombang
Yes, after the 737-MAX I absolutely want more computers, AI, blockchain,
cloud, microservices, HTTP/3 and big data in the planes I'm boarding.

~~~
skriticos2
The problem with the 737-MAX was not that it used a computer. It was that the
737 series is generally not designed to be fly-by-wire and it was rammed in
there to keep previous flight characteristics and just generally downplay the
design ramifications of putting a much more massive engine below the wings
that tilts the center of gravity considerably and changes flight
characteristics.

Airbus is doing fine with fly-by-wire. They do so because they start with it
at the design stage and don't haphazardly change major aerodynamic
characteristics without going back to the drawing board and thinking through
all the ramifications.

There is much more to say what went wrong and it's fairly well documented in
public sources and little of it was because computers (though there is
something to be said about the code quality culture at Boeing, but that's a
different topic).

------
darrenf
Reminds me of the Boeing X-48B unmanned BWB:
[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/X-48B/index.htm...](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/research/X-48B/index.html)

And the Shell Oil concept plane model at Manchester's science museum:
[https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co84138...](https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8413827/conceptual-
aircraft-model-model-aircraft)

------
batsy71
From the model showing in the video, the aircraft has 2 vertical stabilizer
mounted engines ala trijets
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trijet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trijet)).
Barring some smaller jets, this design has ceased in most large airliners for
multiple reasons, one of them being the crash of United Flight
232([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_232))
where the Vert stabilizer mounted engine suffered an explosive dis-integration
which in turn structurally damaged the tail sections as well as its hydraulic
control lines, rendering the vert stab uncontrollable.

My guess would be the present design has many more significant iterations
left.

------
ceejayoz
I'm more interested in the E-Fan X aircraft shown. Looks like the BAe 146,
which is probably my favorite plane of all time to fly in.

~~~
detritus
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-
Fan_X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_E-Fan_X)

I think it's exactly the BAe 146 :) One of my favourite planes also - I used
to love flying early morning flights with DanAir from the North of England
down to London back in the 80s... of course these days I'd just get the train.

I was reading up on the 146 a few months back, idly wondering how much one
would cost - I think the reason they're using one here is that they're
comparatively cheap on the used market as the number of engines makes them
fairly expensive to service, but said number of engines obviously provides
redundancy.

------
mrfusion
Regarding the turning problem. Why can’t they use the rudder more to turn and
less tilting the plane?

~~~
_archon_
Because that's not how flying works. When you apply rudder, you create a
moment in the yaw axis, but that doesn't change the vector of the aircraft's
speed/momentum. So your plane is still moving along its original vector, it's
just not pointed straight at the direction it's moving anymore. This creates
aerodynamic inefficiencies (which often self-correct) until eventually the
plane's motion vector can be re-aligned to the direction it's pointing
(completing a turn). Unfortunately, this is super inefficient. You're
basically burning extra fuel to compensate for the aerodynamic inefficiencies
you created by using the rudder only.

Plus, there may be some juddering/felt turbulation by the passengers,
depending on how severe your induced yaw is. The passenger would also feel the
plane pushing them to the side, rather than back and down into the seat as in
a conventional turn.

Changing direction more conventionally is way more efficient, loads control
surfaces less, is more consistent for passengers, and is pretty much better in
every way.

------
smm2000
You do not really spend much time in cabin - you are either outside the ship
during stops or in restaurants/bars/deck/pool during sea time. Inside cabins
are often amazing value and work well if you do not have kids.

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emayljames
[https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/stories/Imagine-
travelling-i...](https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/stories/Imagine-travelling-
in-this-blended-wing-body-aircraft.html)

------
hinkley
Boeing was looking at such designs around the time of the 787 program.

Whoever does manufacture one of these, I will bet you any amount of money that
window seats will be at a large price premium, possibly even only for first
class passengers.

~~~
mongol
The comment above movement in the article had me thinking... banking movements
must feel scarier close to the windows on these types of planes.

~~~
hinkley
True. So it may still be at the front of the plane (where the distance from
centerline is still small). I could see a V shaped first class. Possible with
a keystone-shaped galley, or a lounge.

The other problem is how do you get the toilets and the galley serviced from
outside? And load the cargo bay?

------
dver
This was a really cool attempt at a homebuilt BWB.

[http://wingco.com/](http://wingco.com/)

~~~
londons_explore
Looks like that project suffered from the "hard to control" issue...

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jaggednad
What is this? A plane for ants?!

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sgt101
What? They have built a model?

------
pizza
Call me a luddite but I feel unease at executives predicting the future of air
travel depends on “disruptive technologies”

~~~
raverbashing
Disruptive technologies that are now commonplace in aviation:

\- Jet engines

\- Yaw damper

\- Fly-by-wire

\- ILS

\- Composites

Among other minor inventions

------
JohnJamesRambo
> Such aircraft are complex to control

I wonder if 737 Max is making them rethink this already. I love how it looks
though.

~~~
GuB-42
There is nothing wrong with fly-by-wire and full authority controls as long as
it is done correctly, it can even be more reliable than traditional
mechanisms.

The way these things are made reliable is by redundancy and formal testing.
The Boeing 737 Max MCAS had neither: it relied on a single angle of attack
sensor and the software wasn't certified up to the appropriate level. The big
mistake was that they gave the system more authority than what it was
originally designed for, without an appropriate requalification.

~~~
jillesvangurp
Exactly. MCAS had only one goal: making the Boeing Max feel like the old
Boeings by fiddling with the trim so that expensive retraining could be
avoided. A fly by wire solution would have resulted in more design changes in
the cockpit thus requiring a new type rating for lots of pilots.

IMHO it is entirely fixable technically but of course the scrutiny of the FAA
on this and the resulting steady flow of management fuckups, more potential
issues being unveiled, and the apparent failure of the certification process
is pretty much guaranteeing this to take quite long. Last year I was still
optimistic it would fly again soon but given the recent trickle of more
issues, I think this is going to be a pro-longed grounding.

Airbus had it's fair share of incidents involving fly by wire in the eighties
and nineties. However, more recent incidents seem to be not related to that
anymore (terrorist attacks, bird strikes, bad weather/decision making, etc.).
So, fly by wire is entirely safe if done properly these days and also not
optional for flying most modern military planes. Airbus basically laid the
foundation for their current success in the market right then.

IMHO pilots are increasingly becoming safety pilots (i.e. emergencies and
unusual situations are the only times they fly manually) and we're not that
long away from fully autonomous planes. Right now, aside from takeoff and
landing, most passenger planes are controlled via the auto pilot only. The
pilot doesn't touch the yoke and instead fiddles with buttons to direct the
auto pilot. Cat III landings can be fully automated technically and certified
pilots are required to fly a certain amount of fully automated touchdowns
regularly. The military routinely flies remotely controlled drones and fully
autonomous drones already.

So, a design like this could make sense. 20% reduction in drag is quite a lot
of gain and fly by wire has been used for decades to make all sorts of
otherwise unstable configurations flyable.

------
rwmj
If they're going all in on a radical new design, and especially if it might
only be for cargo, why not get rid of the pilots?

~~~
hnarn
Because people will not fly a plane that has no pilot. One of the largest
scandals in aviation history was unveiled only recently and it was caused by
software issues, not the human factor as mostly is the case. We're not there
yet and pretending we are won't make it so.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Um. On long flights, apparently the pilots are mostly asleep. So 'nobody'
includes a lot of people, practically.

~~~
slavak
The pilots are definitely not "mostly asleep" on long flights. There will be
two qualified pilots monitoring the aircraft at all times during the flight
(with the possible exception of one stepping out for a moment to use the
restroom during cruise). Long haul flights will carry relief crew, 3 or even 4
pilots total, so they can take shifts flying the aircraft.

Being asleep in the cockpit is a good way to quickly end your flying career.

------
madaxe_again
What about patents? I’d be surprised if Boeing don’t own patents in every
possible field related to this type of design, given their history with this
type of aircraft.

It’s a nice idea, but I can’t see it ever being anything other than a loud
argument. Maybe that’s the point - airbus trying to lure Boeing into a battle
they think they can win (legal) when it turns out it’s actually an ambush in
the PR war.

~~~
zprunger
patents are typically valid for 20 years or so depending on jurisdiction. So
unless Boeing has done a bunch of research/patenting after the year 2000 is
not something to worry about.

~~~
hef19898
There have been a lot of flying wings or blended wing bodies through history.
Horten (Germany) in the 30s and 40s, Northrop since the 40s and some russian
models from 30s and 40s as well. The concept isn't that new. It just didn't
make that much sense so far in non-military, non-stealth applications.
Excluding UAVs, the B-2 has build the most with 21, followed by the Horten
H.III gluider from WW2 with 19 or so.

One issue could be airport infrastructure, the wing span would take up a lot
of terminal / gate space. But if these planes are economically enough, who
knows?

