NASA's New Plane Design Could Save Fuel and Money

a reply to: Barnalby

Fuel is slowly starting to go back up, and within the next two years is expected to bounce hard.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Dr X

There's also the problem of passenger comfort involved.

Is that in relation to when the plane turns some passengers will be a lot higher than others and prospect if luggage tumbling down and hitting them from the lockers?

a reply to: Woody510

Yes. In a tube design, no matter how far out you are, you're within a couple feet of where the fuselage rotates, so you don't really notice it. You also have windows that you can look out. In a blended wing, you lose the windows, and the outer seats are well away from the rotation, so it's going to be harder to keep food on trays, and other issues, like keeping the baggage in the overhead.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I can just imagine a wall of food and drink mixed with luggage heading towards you when it banks Haha

a reply to: Woody510

They were talking about developing skew turns to prevent that, but there just hasn't been a lot of interest beyond possibly a freighter.

originally posted by: stormcell
Given that aerodynamics and hydrodynamics are similar fields, what can be applied to aircraft could be applied to submarines as well. What if they could have several "ring" fan blade engines that are mounted at locations along the fuselage?

The problem with this BLI engine (Bundary Layer Ingestion) is that they haven't got the material strong enough to handle the different pressures around the tail.

www.nasa.gov...

That is a cool question.

The issue with water is that it has a much lower viscosity. You'll have turbulent flow after a few inches already, won't win much, if anything, by trying to mess with the boundary layer.

The fact that subs are relatively large does not help either.

There was the idea use more streamlined shapes for subs for example. But it did not make much difference for the same reason.

Didnt NASA come up with a new algorith for streamlining large military aircraft for fuel savings?
With a big push to go "electric" finally is this a sign of Black asset tech slowly coming out of the lockers?

Graphene composite skins with MHD engines on the wings would give all the free power to drive the rear engine.

a reply to: F4guy
Concord was an expensive experiment never meant for bulk passenger loads over land based point to point routes. So it was not commercially viable. Yes, the 727 was produced in greater numbers, but we were not discussing production volume or operating efficiency, just speed.