I agree it’s fast, I’m just wondering about the advantages of blended wing, and what made it feasible in 2025 that changed since 1950.
And flying wings are flying even today, the US military flew enough B-2 missions or even MQ-170/RQ-180 drone missions to know flying wing and improve on it.
what made it feasible in 2025 that changed since 1950.
It’s obviously all that aerodynamics simulation and wing shape optimization that we can do using modern computing power. Those airflow equations were a bitch to calculate in 1950, and that did not change in 2025, but you can now throw them all onto your GPU and make it loop theough various body shapes to find one with most lift under every possible air speed and angle, and congratulations, you’ve created an AI to design planes.
I don’t think we’ll see civil airliners designed that way, the tubular body is the structurally strongest shape for the amount of metal it uses, and the wing shape is already optimized to maximum. I bet the full-sized BWB plane will use some fancy titanium alloy that will make it too expensive for non-military to produce.
the tubular body is the structurally strongest shape for the amount of metal it uses
I’m actually curious, because in my non-aerospace engineer opinion, it might not be. The primary stress that the body of an airliner must bear is not static air pressure, but the stress coming from the wings and also dynamic air pressure. It’s also a great question if the current semi-monocoque way of building those cylinders is the final, most efficient one.
That said, IIRC airliner research is into engine tech right now, apparently Airbus has some new design that would double the engine diameter but significantly lower fuel consumption, so they need some fancy wing design in order for that to fit, so they might want to have some semi-biplane design with extreme dihedral lower wings and a set of upper wings supporting it.
Other than that - with some sarcasm - the Chinese are mostly researching how to even build airliners to current standards domestically, while Boeing’s research seems to be into how to extract just enough value that they can still deny it was them when the front falls off the jet.
I’d love if competition didn’t just fall apart on airliners though.
I agree it’s fast, I’m just wondering about the advantages of blended wing, and what made it feasible in 2025 that changed since 1950.
And flying wings are flying even today, the US military flew enough B-2 missions or even MQ-170/RQ-180 drone missions to know flying wing and improve on it.
It’s obviously all that aerodynamics simulation and wing shape optimization that we can do using modern computing power. Those airflow equations were a bitch to calculate in 1950, and that did not change in 2025, but you can now throw them all onto your GPU and make it loop theough various body shapes to find one with most lift under every possible air speed and angle, and congratulations, you’ve created an AI to design planes.
I don’t think we’ll see civil airliners designed that way, the tubular body is the structurally strongest shape for the amount of metal it uses, and the wing shape is already optimized to maximum. I bet the full-sized BWB plane will use some fancy titanium alloy that will make it too expensive for non-military to produce.
I’m actually curious, because in my non-aerospace engineer opinion, it might not be. The primary stress that the body of an airliner must bear is not static air pressure, but the stress coming from the wings and also dynamic air pressure. It’s also a great question if the current semi-monocoque way of building those cylinders is the final, most efficient one.
That said, IIRC airliner research is into engine tech right now, apparently Airbus has some new design that would double the engine diameter but significantly lower fuel consumption, so they need some fancy wing design in order for that to fit, so they might want to have some semi-biplane design with extreme dihedral lower wings and a set of upper wings supporting it.
Other than that - with some sarcasm - the Chinese are mostly researching how to even build airliners to current standards domestically, while Boeing’s research seems to be into how to extract just enough value that they can still deny it was them when the front falls off the jet.
I’d love if competition didn’t just fall apart on airliners though.