September 13, 2020
I Suppose Delta Airlines is Particularly Enthusiastic
We asked our Crackerjack team of Science Babes to report on the latest breakthroughs regarding the Flying V.
However, due to poor communication there was some confusion, so I'll just link to this story at Ars Technica.
Flying V is a type of aircraft that has been talked about for some years. In theory a Flying V aircraft with the same passenger capacity as a standard airliner would have about 20 percent less fuel consumption. The design has not been pursued until recently because that's only a theory and there were other theories that the design would just not get off the ground, or flip over and crash. Airbus rejected it, but the engineer who developed the concept hopped the border to the Netherlands and the idea was taken up by Dutch Airline KLM, who have built a scale model and successfully flown it.
Theres a concept video on YouTube...
...which is WAY more impressive looking than the actual event.
But the test is not CGI. It's actual engineering. There's more on this at New Atlas. Which notes that the baseline for the 20% fuel savings claim is the Airbus A350-900 and that unlike most flying wing proposals, a Flying V would have the same or smaller wingspan. This would solve the achilles heel of most flying wing airliner proposals, the notion that airports would have to be massively rebuilt for the new planes. With this they wouldn't.
All this assumes that the thing actually scales up well, which is far from a sure thing. Still, it's nice to see innovative and frankly futuristic looking designs being looked at...it being the 21st century and all.
I'm all for more Syd Mead and less Mad Max.
Image via Slash-Gear
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