I think the more commonly used term is Blended Wing Body.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing_body)

(And actually, now I've just noticed they do use the term further down in the body of the text).

Dumb question but if the all-wing design has major advantages (and basically no negatives?), why haven't we been pursuing this for a long time?

You’re telling me that just recently a random startup thought they’d work on it? It’s not exactly startup territory…

"A clear path to zero": what a joke. It will be 25% less fuel, 75% SAF which are nowhere close (how will one grow enough without fertilizers ?), or worse, hydrogen which is even more nowhere close (how much energy you need to produce H2 ?).

just ditch the plane. That will be so much money you can invest in net-positive technologies.

A lot of us is avoiding more by choosing not to fly.

contrails.org do a great job of explaining this and have some solid interactive tools that allow you to simulate the effect of flight plan changes: https://explore.contrails.org/explorer?time_start=2025-01&ti...

how do know if a route would go through cloud forming regions

because doing this will increase costs instead of performative actions.

So, getting better at manipulating clouds will help prevent planetary heating. I assume there is a huge amount of public support for this scientific research?

So, essentially that's how it works in the game Elite: Dangerous where you load and unload the passengers in cabins which are measured in tons. They can even be stolen mid-flight by anyone with a hatch breaker drone. Unfortunately, you cannot jettison them in the void of space.

Then there are the Imperial slaves which are considered cargo and not passengers, but it's a different story...

I just want to go to an hospital, get an injection, fall asleep and wake up on a bed at another hospital somewhere else.

I would argue that the most wastage is in how people embark and disembark. During Covid I flew a few times back home and they did line-by-line from the middle through both doors, and that was quite good and efficient.

that sounds like an absolute nightmare haha

I think that's called a train.

In a conventional aircraft you sit on the roll axis. In a blended wing body design you can have off-axis motion that can increase motion sickness. Rather than rolling with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, you move up and down when the aircraft banks. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but an additional difference to deal with.

No way. Looking out the window is one of the joys of flying.

Picking out my house, seeing tiny cars on a remote highway, etc. Even 100+ MP cameras and high resolution screens won't come close to that level of detail.

I don’t know how many people are claustrophobic, but for me this would be a non-starter.

Edit: apparently 12.5% of the population has claustrophobia. If 5% of flyers choose a different airline due to simulated windows that would wipe out any cost benefit from fuel savings.

I give absolutely less than zero f's about no windows for 2" more legroom.

IIRC, minimum one window for each rows is a safety requirement, so that firefighters can see inside a burning plane or something. I think that is believed to be how that fence appeared.

The gates thing was my first thought when I saw the design although a staircase on the tarmac could be a cheap workaround.

Be nice to not have to deal with that one guy who didn’t close their window when it’s dark cabin time on long multi-Timezone flights; leaving the sun to blare in when you’re really trying to get some shut eye.

What do economy seats look like? I can't imagine they all have wrap-around video...

Would dropping airplane windows lower radiation exposure somewhat, especially on those polar routes?

the biggest challenge would likely be training pilots to a new cockpit and flight profile

No passenger windows is the correct way to go. The screens can actually show anything, not just replace a window.

There are many reasons for a lot of things, until you overcome those reasons. That's the point of innovation. There are many reasons not to make a reusable rocket too.

Halving the fuel consumption may be worth the trouble with all above.

Novel things always look unviable. First cars, first planes, first EVs all looked like dubious gimmicks sorely lacking the required infrastructure.

Agreed. There are always large amounts of money being poured into aviation and most of what comes out is knowledge.

It's always exciting to see futuristic designs and bleeding edge tech but there are a lot of footnotes in aviation history filled with these.

I think electric aviation (in general aviation) is probably the best/real frontier to watch for innovation currently. Many advances in aviation come from much smaller operations doing something successfully.

It’s also much smaller. The main problem will be that the people sitting outside experience a lot of vertical motion when the aircraft rolls. That’s only a problem with the full scale design.

Please lookup the flight envelope, cruise fuel utilization, and stall characteristics of the Dyke Delta along with its cargo capacity.

Then you'll understand why so many Cessna 172s were built.

Another one I'm familiar with: https://www.verheesengineering.com/d2-twoseater/

The reason that these companies are choosing Greensboro as a base is due to the fact that the GSO airport has a relatively-long 10,001-foot runway but comparatively little commercial air traffic. Additionally, the airport property is quite large compared to some "urban" airports, and is under a lot of active land development to make room for more manufacturing facilities.

The HondaJet HQ is here (and has been for some time), as well as a number of aircraft repair facilities inside the airport fence, and there are ~5mil people within a 90 minute drive of GSO, so it's becoming easier to source talent for aerospace as well.

Our long runways and the fact that we only have around ~7 flights arriving/departing per hour, and the proximity to Washington DC, is why GSO is used quite often for training operations for "Air Force One" - we see 28000 and 29000 do very low passes over our house around once a month as they do touch-and-go and go-around drills, so it's always funny to see the flurry of "did you guys see that?" posts on Nextdoor.

Wow, I blinked and it's been 20+ years since Spaceship One? Yikes, time really does fly.

Presumably we haven't heard as much after Northrop bought them?

I think it's awesome that Scaled Composites is involved... they really have such specialized knowledge of all kinds of aeronautical engineering.

You mean the infamous best selling truck of all time globally? The vehicle that actual working people use everyday? Just because you see a few people use them not for work doesn't really mean anything.

I'm interested in what you are referring to. Do you have link to this truck, the story..

tell me more? I used to live in Albuquerque and always wondered what happened.

The people they do that have a lot of experience and make a lot of money. Fortunately, most of the world doesn’t have the software business’ cavalier attitude about safety-related things being perfectly safe.

A few of my Mom's uncles were test pilots. They're… an odd bunch.

Good job they have test pilots then.

Move fast and break things.

If they offer free flights to places people want to go they will not have any shortage of testers.

So you think JetZero's blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft design will be killed by regulators? Why?

Btw, it will take hydrogen propulsion for their planes to be zero CO2 emission.

Can you share more on why regulations will kill it please?

Aside from regulation, the edge-envelope characteristics of a flying wing mandate fly-by-wire and, essentially, full-time autopilot.

Even then, good luck recovering when you, even marginally, exceed the energy*altitude parameters during take-off/landing during high wind shear.

Even B2s, with all of their on-board systems, have highly restrictive TOGA envelopes.

Pratt & Whitney PW2040 turbofan engine, same as the Boeing 757 and the C-17. They say that the plane itself is so efficient they don't need a cutting edge efficient engine.

A glider?

et tu Boom?

No, but that's really the least of the problems in getting this thing into commercial flight.

> Aviation is in a massive rut and needs bold new designs and innovation.

Why does it need bold new design and innovation? More people (can afford to) fly every year, more safely, and with broadly more consistency than they ever have. The success of the commercial aviation industry as a whole is breathtaking.

the OceanGate Titan of airplanes

On the plus side, the competition seems a bit lousy lately

From an engineering perspective, it's a solved task. Designing an airplane is on par with designing a suspension bridge.

From a regulatory perspective, the layers of bureaucracy needed to get approval to build a bridge has nothing on starting up an airline manufacturing company. Once you have a company with a history of approval, you can practically do what you want, but getting to that point is nearly impossible.

If the numbers are what they claim. They’re going to make it.

Eh, if SpaceX did rockets… I wouldn’t be surprised if they could be very nimble compared to the big ones.

I don't mind no windows at all if they have "digital windows" as substitutes. You're already 40,000ft in the air I think windows aren't really gonna help your claustrophobia. Not like you can open the door and walk out for a bit.

Actually no windows doesn't even pass Passenger Flight rules and regulations. In Asia, its mandatory that windows should be opened, visible during takeoff and landing.