I'll take the under.
yup.
Hopefully it works out. At a minimum hopefully it creates some jobs for the community (and I like that they're partnering with a community college). At a minimum hopefully the kids from that program get some valuable experience.
Yeah, the configuration is completely unworkable from an integrated aerodynamics and propulsion standpoint...right? Completely uncontrollable and unflyable...right? Non-existent pitch control at high alpha makes it impossible to recover from stalls...right?
Worked for Rutan.
Why doesn't the B-2 fly? Or the B-49?
There would be few window seats for this design, renderings for this sort of plane in the past show seating similar to a theater. Lots of middle seats- I think there will be flying customer pushback from this more than anything else. The windows depicted are probably for first class pax.
They did add a whole empennage to the later version. Was it for decoration or was it necessary to improve the flight characteristics? It took the whole BW tailless delta kinda concept and turned it into a BW tailed delta.
There was (and still is) a lot of effort being put into noise reduction for large airplanes. The 3 engines were replaced with 2 high-ish bypass turbofans built around the same core as the original turbojets and the vertical stabilizers and associated rudders were moved inboard to shield the engines to reduce the noise signature. Both configurations used drag rudders on the outboard wings to supplement directional control power. There was no change in the number and style of directional stability and control effectors (i.e. stabilizers and rudders), and in the pitch axis the number of effectors (elevators and elevons) either stayed the same or was reduced by 2 (I can't recall which). The aft deck between the verticals was extended a bit to shield the exhaust signature below There was no empennage added and the changes were not made to address aerodynamics.
I had the same thought but then I reflected that on all of my recent flights, people kept the window shades down (I didn't, I like to look) and used their devices. I don't think lack of window seats is a problem any more.
I don't know how important windows are to passengers. I recently flew a ~1000nm commercial round-trip on 737s, outbound during daytime and return in the evening/early nighttime, and both flights appeared to have most of the window shades down the whole time, even for takeoff and landing. I don't fly commercial very often, so I don't know if this is typical.
Yes, and I have done a fair amount of commercial in the last 6 months. It's all the same. Shades down, devices on.
Windows are kind of like Tang. If they're good enough for the astronauts…
What if you fly on a 787 or 350 and the force darken it from the crew station with no passenger override option?
People use the side of the plane to rest against too. I think this is one of the arguments that United Airlines uses for their defense in the lawsuit that they sold "window seats" with no windows. I'll lean against the side of the plane for sleeping myself on long flights.
I prefer it too.
Hey, the Wright Brothers used a bicycle
Check out the picture of the Pickup Truck. Cheap Low Speed Wind Tunnel?
I expect emergency egress requirements would pretty much rule out having to crawl across 10 seats to get out in under 90 sec. There's no reason to expect a traditional 1- or 2-aisle seating configuration in a radically new airframe configuration.
Good points. But they may make people crawl across 5 seats.I expect emergency egress requirements would pretty much rule out having to crawl across 10 seats to get out in under 90 sec. There's no reason to expect a traditional 1- or 2-aisle seating configuration in a radically new airframe configuration.
Aside: No one's yet mentioned the ride quality considerations for someone sitting at the cabin walls, particularly when rolling in out our of turns.
Nauga,
floating but not clogging
They're going to get sticky and someone's always going to lick them.
I'm curious about how you arrived at 5. Has anyone got an 11-across seat configuration now? It's not likely that the 90 sec requirement will change, and it really comes down to whether or not that can be met. I'm not aware of anyone with an 11 seat row now, and the egress requirement is already a tough one to meet.
Two words…ejection seats.
The A380 has 11 across, but with 2 aisles; the center section is 5 across (3-5-3). The number 5 was just a number I made up that seems reasonable. I'm convinced that the designers will maximize the number of pax in the plane. Even if there is only 5 across, there will be many more middle seats than there are now. Even with 3-3-3 configuration, middle seats are 1/3 the number of seats (approximately- some pedant will note exceptions). A 5-5-5 configuration will make ~2/3 the seats middle seats.
We're talking about different things here. Longer continuous rows require more time to egress from middle seats than discontinuous rows with the same number of seats separated by aisle, this impacting egress time.
No. It initially failed at 5% *below* the limit it was required to reach. Still a failure, but hardly comparable; and irrelevant to egress time. Regardless, the wing structure was modified to comply with the requirement. The waiver you imply may have been for the requirement to physically demonstrate that compliance on the structural test rig but I'm not certain.
No, talking about the same things. I did specify the aisles in the part of the statement that you cut, thereby recognizing the egress time. Given what exists now, a row of 5 seats between aisles is certainly possible.
Yeah, the configuration is completely unworkable from an integrated aerodynamics and propulsion standpoint...right? Completely uncontrollable and unflyable...right? Non-existent pitch control at high alpha makes it impossible to recover from stalls...right?
Rebuttals of the above aero-propulsion "assessments" with the exception of ice ingestion were successfully demonstrated in flight from 2007-2013 (non-continuous).
X-48B:
X-48C:
photo credits: NASA
Nauga,
in the papers
