I wonder what the comfort level would be like in a rough landing being so far left/right of the center of gravity if the plane was doing a lot of rolling corrections?
That's the problem. When passengers are seated too far from the axis of rotation they're in for a nausea inducing ride.
Designers could reduce the problem to an extent by building a double deck passenger compartment and putting the baggage compartments out toward the wings, rather than the current standard design which places passengers on the upper level and bags on the lower level. But there are limits to how well that can scale. I'm skeptical that we'll ever see flying wing or blended wing body designs used for airliners. Cargo and military applications are probably more realistic.
The proposed design puts the cargo on the inside of the V to maximize good views, and probably helps with logistics. I imagine the novelty of looking forward while flying is a selling point.
> That's the problem. When passengers are seated too far from the axis of rotation they're in for a nausea inducing ride.
What if the seats far from the axis of rotation faced sideways instead of forward? People don't seem to be as affected by pitch changes as they are by roll changes, probably because we are get a lot of exposure to pitch changes whenever we drive in a hilly area.
The angular change is negligible in either case. The problem is you're ping-ponging vertically. For example, a 3 degree bank correction in an aircraft with a 70 meter wingspan will move each wingtip by 1.3 meters vertically.
In the picture, the passenger cabin appears to be using only 1/3 of the wingspan, so the vertical movement of the outermost passengers (in the last row) will be much smaller than the vertical movement of the wingtips.
A last row width of 25m is much wider than the 5m of a conventional aircraft, but much smaller than 70m.
What if we place lift-fans in these undesirable areas? One in the center of the V and two out in the wings. Basically, instead of banking the aerodynamic savings we spend it on hauling dead-weight associated with VTOL operation. That could kind of make sense.
There is research done at a big American aircraft manufacturer which determined a limit on how far you could comfortably position passengers outboard. (I believe it was 13m). This airplane respects that limit, the outboard sections are used for cargo and fuel.
Disclaimer: I work at the same research group at the Delft University
However, judging by the window placement, the passengers furthest aft are maybe twice as far from the center of rotation compared to a widebody? That's far better than any other flying wing/blended wing concepts I've seen to date.
[edit] Also the traditional place for first-class travellers will be no further than in a widebody aircraft, so the people for whom the airlines actually care about comfort will be unaffected.
I'm not seeing a problem with banked turns, only high roll rates. During the turn, so long as it's coordinated, everyone, regardless of position, should have the same experience.
It's entering an exiting the turn where you could have some greater effects. But again, so long as you use a slow roll rate, it shouldn't be too noticeable.
Not even on a rough landing, just banking maneuvers on take off and landing. The prevailing winds and local mountains at my local airport require a banked turn of some sort for almost every flight. I can usually feel the banking in a typical passenger plane. Imagine what it would be like in the seats furthest from the rotational axis of the plane!
