Boeing working on BWB freighter

Boeing is working with two potential customers to develop a freighter version of the Blended Wing Body design. The time frame is 8-10 years. Boeing says the two biggest obstacles to overcome are low speed handling, and manufacturability.

Boeing is working with two potential customers to define a commercial freighter variant of its blended wing body large transport aircraft as it prepares to fly a subscale model of the flying-wing design at NASA Dryden in California.

“We have been working with a couple of customers,” says George Muellner, president, advanced systems, for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. “We have a
customer, we have finalised what they want, and it is now an issue of customer funding and our desire to invest.”

Boeing has been working on the BWB concept for years, but the design is still at an early stage.

BWB Freighter

Contrary to opinions of many people on this board I don't think we will see non military BWB transport soon... I mean it's nice that it needs less fuel but it's much more difficult and costly to manufacture BWB design. Not to mention the upgrade. If you want to ugrade classical plane you can just make fuselage longer and add new engines and stronger wing. By BWB desing you need to do everything again.

The Air Force will of course have their eye on the progress of the BWB...since they need big planes to move a lot of gear (hence the C-5 modernization).

But I wouldn't be suprised is one of the customers isn't UPS or Fed-Ex.

And ofcourse I have to remind everyone about how many problems the BWB would create for modern airports and the reasons would be similer to why the A380 has had problems with widing of taxiways and place to load and unload people.

A PASSENGER version could create problems, but most freight is handled away from passenger terminals. I don't think a freighter would cause any sort of major issue with any airports.

Originally posted by Canada_EH
And ofcourse I have to remind everyone about how many problems the BWB would create for modern airports and the reasons would be similer to why the A380 has had problems with widing of taxiways and place to load and unload people.

We wont see a passenger version of the BWB until the motion sickness problem has been solved.

Don't forget that the military is in desperate need of a small transport. The C-130 is an old dog.

A small swift C-130 replacement Blended Wing would be sweet. More cargo volume, with half as many engines, more range and less noise!

Originally posted by RichardPrice
[We wont see a passenger version of the BWB until the motion sickness problem has been solved.

There will be no need to worry about motion sickness on a smaller Blended Wing or a Freighter.

Shipping containers don't get motion sickness.

Originally posted by MrKnight

There will be no need to worry about motion sickness on a smaller Blended Wing or a Freighter.

Shipping containers don't get motion sickness.

Hence why I *specifically* said 'passenger version'...

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Originally posted by MrKnight

There will be no need to worry about motion sickness on a smaller Blended Wing or a Freighter.

Shipping containers don't get motion sickness.

Hence why I *specifically* said 'passenger version'...

Hence why I *specifically* said 'small blended wing'...

If a small blened wing were developed for passengers, it would be like a wide body aircraft on a regional sized aircraft. In place of a single aisle 2 x 2 row or a single aisle 3 x 2 seating arrangement, a regional blended wing could have a double aisle, 2 x 3 x 2 or a 3 x 2 x 3 row arrangement.

I would rather fly on a wide body seating arrangement on a small blended wing on my connecting flights.

I doubt that they are developing the full 260+ foot wingspan blended aircraft. The associated cost of such a large blended wing would be too big of a risk on new technology. If you look to aviation history, new concepts are tried on a smaller scale first. If they are serious about taking blended wing technology to the next step, I would suspect that it would be sized to something bigger than a scaled model (X-48B test flight version w/ 21 ft wingspan) and the large concept they have released to the public.

When the design is pinned down, and the 787 big showing this summer is over, I think we will get more information on the payload range and deisgn size this initial blended wing will have.

[edit on 24-5-2007 by MrKnight]

Well the first flight of the 1/10 scale is "supposed" to happen towards the end fo this year. Also found some more information you may be interested in about the freighter version that is purposed by Boeing.

There is some mention of formation flight and UAV versions of the plane as well to lower costs. The formation flights would be for high density routes I'm assuming.

www.myoops.org...

The X-48B will be in test flights late this month and through next month.

CNN Money - Radical new Boeing aircraft takes flight

I have a copy of that design study. In fact I have a color copy that I printed up a few years back. The formation flight formation is very interesting. That study is of the large BWB, but as I mentioned, I doubt that the military and private companies will be willing to invest on such a large aircraft.

I would suspect a smaller version is in the pipeline.

A small swift C-130 replacement Blended Wing would be sweet. More cargo volume, with half as many engines, more range and less noise!

BW transport needs to be big. Small Hercules sized blended wing simply doesn't have enough place for cargo (vertically).

Originally posted by longbow
BW transport needs to be big. Small Hercules sized blended wing simply doesn't have enough place for cargo (vertically).

That is true if you take the Boeing BWB 260 ft. wingspan concept and scale it directly down to a smaller size.

The next time your out side, watch a little song bird take flight. Notice how the little round body is a nice fluid shape. To acheve a bwb to that scale, you would have to give it a thicker center body, but blend out the shape so it is still a lifting shape.

Nah, a pure BWB is not the best way to go for a small freighter.

There are too many structural compromises, and interior volume is not ideal in shape.


Using a multi-bubble fuselage is the most efficient structurally (well, compared to the alternatives except the conventional cylinderical option). Having a smaller freighter using the extremely wide body can generate significant lift at take-off and landing, eliminating the need for extra-lift devices in the wings, saving cost and weight (as well as airframe noise reduction on landing).


Interestingly, a small freighter using the this approach can accomodate the large containers as used on the 'big jets', meaning a much quicker transfer time in the traditional hub-spoke network.



As for using the BWB or lifting body for passenger aircraft, the economics don't really work at the moment. It will take a large increase of the knowledge base before they will be certified for carrying commerical passengers.


*Note, by lifting body I do NOT mean pure lifting body with no wings. I mean the fuselage generates significant lift.

[edit on 24/5/07 by kilcoo316]

Originally posted by RichardPrice
We wont see a passenger version of the BWB until the motion sickness problem has been solved.

I assume your talking about when its turning.
There are 2 solutions I can think of:

1. Dividers - but then people might get anxious, since no one likes sitting in a cubicle...and the people in the middle would have divider walls on both sides of them...which would really suck.

2. Thrust Vectoring - This is a relatively new tech...which has being done on the X-31, SU-30, & F-22. There’s no reason this couldn't be applied to the commercial sector. Just have paddles like the X-31...have 2 paddles, one on the left & one on the right, since there would be no need to have thrust vectoring for anything other than horizontal, for commercial flights.
Using this method, you could turn the craft...and the passengers wouldn't even know your turning.

Originally posted by Murcielago
There are 2 solutions I can think of:

1. Dividers - but then people might get anxious, since no one likes sitting in a cubicle...and the people in the middle would have divider walls on both sides of them...which would really suck.

2. Thrust Vectoring - This is a relatively new tech...which has being done on the X-31, SU-30, & F-22. There’s no reason this couldn't be applied to the commercial sector. Just have paddles like the X-31...have 2 paddles, one on the left & one on the right, since there would be no need to have thrust vectoring for anything other than horizontal, for commercial flights.
Using this method, you could turn the craft...and the passengers wouldn't even know your turning.

1 wouldn't work, it would probably only make things worse.

I'm not sure what you intend with 2, do you mean use TVC on the engines to replace the rudder and perform flat turns? (i.e. no banking)?


The solution (if it happens) will be larger and slower turns.. at least until someone develops inertial dampers

Originally posted by Murcielago
I assume your talking about when its turning.

Yes.

There are 2 solutions I can think of:

1. Dividers - but then people might get anxious, since no one likes sitting in a cubicle...and the people in the middle would have divider walls on both sides of them...which would really suck.

That would not work - the problem is the up and down motion when the aircraft is in a bank. The further you are from the centreline the worse the motion is, and people get sick.

2. Thrust Vectoring - This is a relatively new tech...which has being done on the X-31, SU-30, & F-22. There’s no reason this couldn't be applied to the commercial sector. Just have paddles like the X-31...have 2 paddles, one on the left & one on the right, since there would be no need to have thrust vectoring for anything other than horizontal, for commercial flights.
Using this method, you could turn the craft...and the passengers wouldn't even know your turning.

You mean turning the aircraft via crabbing? That would solve the motion sickness problem, but now you have just thrown everything around in the cabin - thats the reason airliners bank and not crab a turn today, it gets messy. At least in a bank turn, your drink stays on your tray.

Originally posted by kilcoo316
There are too many structural compromises, and interior volume is not ideal in shape.

Using a multi-bubble fuselage is the most efficient structurally (well, compared to the alternatives except the conventional cylinderical option).

There are existing patents on aircraft structures that would solve the structural problem of wide unsupported spans.

Here is one example:
United States Patent 5893535

"Structural ribs for providing structural support for a structure, such as the pressure cabin of a blended-wing body aircraft. In a first embodiment,..."

By using these types of structures with a combination of increased skin thickness, and support members, you will have more useable volume with out having to compromise the structure.

Also, when describing the manuvering of an aircraft, please describe how the turn accomplished. Please use the terms Pitch, Yaw and Roll. Also keep in mind your angle of attack, power, and if you are going to maintain alt. or not.

The Basics

I find it hard to enter into an aircraft "control" topic by just useing the term "turn" because it can be acheved by a combination of controls.

If you are concerned about just useing roll to acheve the turn, then you can use some yaw to reduce the amount of roll used, thus keeping the aircraft from tilting to much making people sick.

I do not think a passeneger BWB will cause alot of sickness if it is properly design so that it have pleant of control.

Once again, these things will be considered in the design phase, and studied before manufacturing. That is why the X-48B is being flight tested and wind tunnel tested so that the right control featurs can be incoporated into the design.

Originally posted by MrKnight
There are existing patents on aircraft structures that would solve the structural problem of wide unsupported spans.

Here is one example:
United States Patent 5893535

"Structural ribs for providing structural support for a structure, such as the pressure cabin of a blended-wing body aircraft. In a first embodiment,..."

By using these types of structures with a combination of increased skin thickness, and support members, you will have more useable volume with out having to compromise the structure.

You taking the piss?


That patent is a collection of words that mean absolutely nothing - less than nothing in fact.


Its a basic fact that any pressure vessel that is not spherical in nature is a compromise, a cylinder gets away with it by using semi-spherical caps at either end to ensure that the loading is evenly distributed across the skin, causing no stress concentrations.

Even current conventional aircraft have numerous compromises to this, and many of the wide-body aircraft already have two semi-cylinders (of different diameters) coupled to gether to optimise internal volume while minimising structural weight addition.


A BWB requires alot of major structural compromises, while it does offer excellent aerodynamic performance, its not the be all and end all, far from it. A ultra-wide bodied fuselage that generates lift at take-off/landing with conventional wings is the best solution (well, actually, without external financing for the R&D risk the conventional fuselage with wings is best, but thats not the point).

Originally posted by MrKnight
Also, when describing the manuvering of an aircraft, please describe how the turn accomplished. Please use the terms Pitch, Yaw and Roll. Also keep in mind your angle of attack, power, and if you are going to maintain alt. or not.

OK, a coordinated banked turn (you know, the one that every civilian aircraft in the word does all the time).

That uses everything - ailerons first (to bank) , rudder second (to stop the nose yawing down, but also used for making the turn - its a balance), and elevators third (to keep the nose up).

With the increase in induced drag (a coordinated turn at 30deg bank is 2g - quite significant) an increase in power to compensate will be necessary.

Originally posted by MrKnight
I find it hard to enter into an aircraft "control" topic by just useing the term "turn" because it can be acheved by a combination of controls.

Its not hard - anyone that works in the industry knows what a turn implies.

Originally posted by MrKnight
If you are concerned about just useing roll to acheve the turn, then you can use some yaw to reduce the amount of roll used, thus keeping the aircraft from tilting to much making people sick.

Go google coordinated turn

Originally posted by MrKnight
I do not think a passeneger BWB will cause alot of sickness if it is properly design so that it have pleant of control.

Next time your in a plane, and it makes a turn, look at how far the wingtip moves - would you like to be perched on it? That movement is necessary to perform the turn.


It is not a question of design, its a question of operational procedure. Maximum roll rates and roll accelerations that are much lower than current will have to be imposed. That results in much larger and slower turns, which means ATC procedures have to be re-considered.







[edit on 25/5/07 by kilcoo316]