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wired.com — It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an integrated wing-body concept aircraft that's quieter and more fuel efficient than anything aloft today. Here's why you won't be boarding it any time soon.

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 15, 2006

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19 Comments

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  • EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13"Here's why you won't be boarding it any time soon."

    I found almost nothing in the article about *WHY* we won't be boarding it any time soon. Other than some vague comments about product development studies it pretty much just said it would take a long time to develop. Where's the beef?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Does it come with a mallet under your seat for smacking crying babies sitting next to you?
  • blahblah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7It'll take 25 years for them to implement a plane that is 25% more fuel efficient? Yeah, this planet's *****.
  • Pushkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Direct link to project: http://silentaircraft.org/
  • nutcase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5how about a good old blimp with nice wood interior and fancy food and drinks, Indiana Jones style...
  • gardnert1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4heres a link with a bunch of images of the plane: http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/innenriks/article799813.ece
  • hakluytbean, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Too many people too far from side exits I think may be one problem.
  • NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm wondering whether 25 years from now anyone will care. It's been just minutes since it reached the front page and excitement is already waning.
  • Garda, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I think that also wing bodied aircraft are much more unstable and difficult to control than aircraft with regular fuselage. This can usually be overcome by using a computer aided control system, but regulations in most parts of the world state that the aircraft much be controllable without computer assistance in the event of emergencies and computer failures.

    This is not a problem for military aircraft, their regulations are not as strict, that's why you have aircraft like the B2 and the eurofighter
  • ronsanto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I think this would sell extremely well. Unless there actually are any safety/regulation problems, I don't understand why Boeing hasn't taken this idea and run with it.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's Dr. Jones!
  • wmtrader, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1

    I recall reading about this very same aircraft design in Popular Science when I was a kid back in the early 1980's and 20 years ago they said that it wouldn't fly for another 20 years, which is now.

    So now the very same design is back in the press and the designers say it won't file for another 25 years.

    Next time this design makes it into the press I hope it is a test vehicle and not a design concept.

  • mglukhovsky, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2That supposed joke was in incredibly poor taste.
  • megaloid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Uh, I dunno...the 707 was pretty damned "concepty" and they built scads of them. How about the 747? It was a veritable freak of aeronautical engineering and they build those, too. Are you familiar with the 787? It's 80% composites, which in the conservative world of aerospace is very radical.
  • grinin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'm sure the funding problem would go away if they adding bombing and machine gun capability to the thing... then you get unlimited amounts of cash from Government contracts for the military.

    Oh and that was a sweet video :D haha
  • moft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0umm. when was the last time a vehicle that looked that 'concepty' ever made it into production? VW Beetle re-release I guess. I remember seeing images for concept aircraft like this in the early nineties' and thought 'wow' but now anything with curves like that reeks of hi-tech materials that never make it to commercial use and government regulations designed to protect industry (ie. some electric cars are banned in australia that are legal in smarter countries like germany).
    I though that CAD and supercomputers allowed us to design better and more efficient craft faster - we still use the shuttle for godsake. I thought they were phasing it out to make way for that thing that looks a bit like this jet. It seems as soon as they finish the design for one they're sick of it and onto the next fancy-looking thing.
  • Zarsk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Wrong but funny!

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