31–40 of 114 posts
They say there's a lot more volume, but would it carry more weight, and where would the weight have to be placed? Why isn't this design used commercially?
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P8 went pretty well. Blended wing isn’t sci-fi, B2 and plenty of ucav are full flying wing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_P-8_Poseidon
Boeing was a very very different company then. I’m bullish on blended wing body, but I would have much more confidence if it were Lockheed or someone emulating the SpaceX, rapid development cycles working on this.
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That's what I'm getting at though. There are imagined criteria for these tests, but what has the real life situation been in actual emergencies? Have there been enough real life evacuations where getting everyone out within 90 seconds vs 3 minutes was the difference in saving many lives?
> 90 seconds vs 3 minutes That's a huge difference in case of a fire. Ninety seconds of smoke filled, oxygen deprived, or hot air, and many people will make it out alive. Three minutes and most will have passed out. There's quite a few instances of burning planes being evacuated where not everybody, but a sizeable portion, made it out. Seconds matter*. * Almost always there was some idiots slowing everything down by…
Ultimately ended up with a carbon fiber bodied more conventional aircraft of course.
Reading the URL, I think that anything about the Air Force caring about a climate action plan, or environmental sensitivity, is window dressing to say that it's also a operational benefit to have a tanker aircraft with greater loiter time, and greater distance possible from base with full fuel load, loiter time, and return distance.
Blended-wing body makes a lot of sense for cargo/tanker aircraft. No issues with emergency evacuation procedure for passengers.
Blended-wing body makes a lot of sense for cargo/tanker aircraft. No issues with emergency evacuation procedure for passengers.
An updated B2 design without stealth would probably be highly achievable in this timeframe. The problem being a cargo plane usually wants a fast approach and takeoff to eliminate threats near the runway. I don’t know if a B2 (or flying wing in general) would be good at that.
What about a flying wing makes the approach slow? Is there some ground effect that comes into play?
The approach isn’t “slow” in terms of aircraft speed but rather its duration. Shallower equals more time in reach of adversary weapons.
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What about a flying wing makes the approach slow? Is there some ground effect that comes into play?
Cargo planes like the C-17 can make a steep “tactical approach” by creating lots of drag, with spoilers, reverse thrust, etc. It’s difficult to get very aerodynamic aircraft to ‘go down and slow down’. That’s not to say that the flying wing design couldn’t have drag devices, but it’d take more to reach similar performance. The approach isn’t “slow” in terms of aircraft speed but rather its duration. Shallower equals…
The design requirements for a C-17 to operate from a rough field, such as that which was built at camp bastion in Helmand province, are considerably different than for an aerial refueling tanker.
The rough field tactical tanker role is as far as I know presently served by a variant of c130 modified for special forces missions.
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> 90 seconds vs 3 minutes That's a huge difference in case of a fire. Ninety seconds of smoke filled, oxygen deprived, or hot air, and many people will make it out alive. Three minutes and most will have passed out. There's quite a few instances of burning planes being evacuated where not everybody, but a sizeable portion, made it out. Seconds matter*. * Almost always there was some idiots slowing everything down by…
That's obvious. But I just made those numbers up - they aren't important to my point, which is that I'm asking if there is any real world data on evacuation timing.
Here's a good example because it has a clear cutoff point: "Less than 90 seconds after touchdown, the interior of the plane flashed over and ignited, killing the remaining 23 passengers on board, who died from smoke inhalation and burns from the flash fire."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Canada_Flight_797
It seems obvious that a faster evacuation would have saved more people and a slower one less, roughly proportional to speed of evacuation.
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If that were true why did we get the 737 MAX?
Not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but I'll bite: The 747 MAX that killed 346 people in two separate accidents and was grounded for nearly two years and cost Boeing 10's of billions of dollars in fines, cancelled orders, etc.? It is perhaps not the best example of modifications to an existing design.