101–110 of 277 posts
Big screens are an OK workaround for no passenger windows, but they still have to contend with severe structural pressurization challenges, strict emergency evacuation rules, and incompatibility with current airport gates.
No way. Looking out the window is one of the joys of flying. Picking out my house, seeing tiny cars on a remote highway, etc. Even 100+ MP cameras and high resolution screens won't come close to that level of detail.
I know that the crew uses the typical seating time to refuel and load luggage in the underbelly, but one can dream of not having to wait to get off the airplane.
Big screens are an OK workaround for no passenger windows, but they still have to contend with severe structural pressurization challenges, strict emergency evacuation rules, and incompatibility with current airport gates.
I don’t know how many people are claustrophobic, but for me this would be a non-starter. Edit: apparently 12.5% of the population has claustrophobia. If 5% of flyers choose a different airline due to simulated windows that would wipe out any cost benefit from fuel savings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No way. Looking out the window is one of the joys of flying. Picking out my house, seeing tiny cars on a remote highway, etc. Even 100+ MP cameras and high resolution screens won't come close to that level of detail.
But are you willing to pay 10-20% more for that joy? I personally would rather pay less money to fly, not get to see out the window, and spend those dollars on, say, a fancier meal at the destination. Or to have an extra day at the destination if my trip length is money-bound rather than time-bound. Or put those dollars towards an extra hour of childcare. Or … I have so many uses for dollars that give me more utility…
Thing is with current structure airlines would dilute business class too much and airplane manufacturers would increase density all while decreasing fuel use per passenger - none of which is desirable.
Big screens are an OK workaround for no passenger windows, but they still have to contend with severe structural pressurization challenges, strict emergency evacuation rules, and incompatibility with current airport gates.
In a conventional aircraft you sit on the roll axis. In a blended wing body design you can have off-axis motion that can increase motion sickness. Rather than rolling with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, you move up and down when the aircraft banks. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but an additional difference to deal with.
An experimental/homebuilt of similar but not exactly the same design, the Dyke Delta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_Delta of which about 50 have been built, has its pilots reporting a comfortable ride.
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theres just some serious serious challenges here i dont think any of them are impossible to overcome but it would span so many more years and so much more funding to get thru. fuselage pressurization which they claim to have worked around (sus) is one of the spookiest imo. traditional looking commercial jets, their designs, their manufacturing processes, their innovations (yes boeing/airbus do innovate and have for a…
> have all been shaped heavily by human blood This assumes the lessons were specific to the body type and aren’t generalizable?
Pressurizing a tube vs pressurizing a pancake (or flattened sphere, or some other easy approximation) will have very different mechanical loading characteristics. Turbulence (differences in air speed/pressure) across a large flat-ish surface that also has a signifiant pressure differential will also prove challenging to design for and scale up.
Aerospace is a very high dimensional design process. Doing anything different puts you into unknown territory real fast.
An airplane is not something I would personally want to beta test
The people they do that have a lot of experience and make a lot of money. Fortunately, most of the world doesn’t have the software business’ cavalier attitude about safety-related things being perfectly safe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a conventional aircraft you sit on the roll axis. In a blended wing body design you can have off-axis motion that can increase motion sickness. Rather than rolling with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, you move up and down when the aircraft banks. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but an additional difference to deal with.
I don't understand your point. Does the wider passenger compartment leads to more extreme transitions at the edges? Is there something else at play I'm not thinking of?
An airliner entering a 30 degree roll over 3 seconds would have passengers pop up or down 25 feet, with at least +0.3 and -0.3G of acceleration. It would come with a "going over the top of the roller coaster" feeling. This is in addition to the roll / rotation.
Yaw is interesting for similar reasons.