The basic design of the jetliner has remained unaltered for the last 50 years - but is this all about to change?
In their form and configuration, the airliners you board today really aren't that different from those half a century ago. The tubular fuselages, externally mounted engines, and conventional wings are all the same. However, the challenges we face this century in making aircraft radically more efficient whilst constantly aiming to increase speed and comfort might mean we're soon to see a shift toward more unconventional looking airliners.
The reason we haven't seen change
Indeed, there has been a huge amount of development in the design of airliners over the years. Although it may not be immediately obvious to the untrained eye, aircraft that have existed for decades, such as the Boeing 737, have seen many hundreds of incremental changes.
The trouble with introducing completely new aircraft is that it's extremely risky business for aircraft manufacturing companies and airlines. Concord, the TU-144 and other supersonic airliners have proved this as you can read about in this article. As mentioned, necessity combined with new technology may see this change.
Efficiency
With the challenges we face in making transport greener, we're sure to see aircraft designs take advantage of new shapes to improve efficiency. The NASA-Boeing blended-wing-body (BWB) airliner, named the X48, aims to use its blended shape to reduce aerodynamic drag.
It's aerodynamic advantages translate into greater range, fuel economy, passenger room, and a prolonged service life.
The NASA led team worked with Cranfield Aerospace to build two scaled-down prototypes for testing back in 2007. These were tested successfully and proved many of the theorized improvements over conventional fuselage/wing/tail configurations of aircraft.
The X-48B, later upgraded to become the X-48C, is an 8.5% scaled down model of the full-sized airliner. If built full size, the aircraft would have a wingspan of 240ft.
Another NASA led concept that aims to radically improve the efficiency of air travel is the Aurora D8. This project is currently being developed by MIT, Pratt & Whitney and NASA.
This 180-seat, 3,000-nm-range airliner features a side-by-side "double bubble" fuselage. Traditionally, airliner fuselages, being pressurized, had to remain tubular to withstand the cyclical strains of pressurization and depressurization on every flight. A twin fuselage provides the same structural integrity whilst increasing room within the cabin.
Compared to aircraft currently filling our skies, such as the Boeing 777, the D8 is designed to be over 50% more fuel efficient thanks to it's smaller rear-mounted engines, thinner wings and lifting body effect fuselage. You can read more about the D8 here.
Speed
Airliners today already fly close to the speed of sound. Surpassing this boundary into the realm of the supersonic transport brings with it a plethora of problems. Overcoming one of them, namely noise, will be necessary if airplanes are to go faster. You'll know about sonic booms if you've read this Flite Test article about Concorde - so how are engineers going to get around this? Some are already working on it.
Lockheed Martin's $247.5 million venture into the world of supersonic passenger aircraft is attempting to quieten the sonic boom. This aircraft, a new X-plane, is shaped in such a way that it will defuse the shockwave traditionally created along the route of an SST. Read up on this project here.
Capacity
Although they're not exactly airliners, airships may be making a comeback. In the early 20th century, these behemoths transported people around the world in style. They could also be used in military applications - this one carried fighter planes! Right now, airships are making more and more sense. In the future, they may redefine the way we think about air travel.
Airlander 10 is a new airship under development. Unlike the airships of old, this one uses helium gas. At 302ft long, it's considerably longer than the largest airliners in the world right now - the Airbus A380 is just 238ft long.
The aircraft will be able to stay in the air for 3 weeks without landing. 70% more environmentally friendly than the average cargo plane whilst being able to lift a comparable load. Airships like the Airlander also have the advantage of being able to take off and land without the use of a runway.
Will we see highly efficient airships like this transporting passengers and cargo in the near future? Well, tests of the Airlander may indicate that the path won't be all that straightforward. In 2016,the prototype nose-dived into the ground damaging the cockpit. In 2017, it again struck a problem when it deflated whilst moored. Despite these setbacks, the future for airships taking a place on the air transport stage is looking bright once more.
We may not be able to predict the future of air travel, but we can have a good old guess at what type of aircraft will rise to the challenges of the 21st century.
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Read more:
Here's Why Supersonic Airliners No Longer Exist
Hover Platforms Aren't Exactly a New Thing
The Bugatti 100P Was Ahead of its Time, Here's Why
Flying Aircraft Carriers: They Were Real!
Article by James Whomsley
Editor of FliteTest.com
Contact: james@flitetest.com
YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/projectairaviation
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The super efficient jet liners being proposed are often slightly slower than existing airliners. They gain a lot of fuel economy by not pushing so close to the sound barrier. They also gain economy by ingesting and accelerating the slow turbulent boundary layer through the engines. That is why the engines are on top and in the rear where the boundary layer is the thickest. Making the engines work efficiently and reliably while feeding them this turbulent inlet air remains to be resolved.
Airships keep coming back, but the logistics of making them work has always been a problem. They are so big for the payload that they can carry, that they are very subject to damage and destruction by even modest winds. The huge hangars to safely store them are also not cheap. Helium might sound great, because it is non-flammable, but it provides significantly less lift than Hydrogen and that has a huge impact on the payload that can be carried after considering the weight of the aircraft structure.
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