DailyDirt: Weird Airplane Designs

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Airplane designs have evolved quite a bit over the years. Some new planes might as well be alien spacecraft compared to the designs most people recognize. Outside of the super secret stealth aircraft, though, there are some interesting planes that are more fuel efficient and have strikingly different silhouettes. Here are just a few examples. If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
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Filed Under: airplane, aviation, engine design, fuel efficient, hondajet, jets
Companies: honda


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 2 Jun 2014 @ 5:26pm

    I'm ashamed, Techdirt

    No love for Forward-Swept Wings?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    madasahatter (profile), 2 Jun 2014 @ 8:21pm

    Fuel Efficiency

    Does the fuel efficiency come at the expense of speed with the open rotor designs. Propeller driven aircraft, as I understand it, are limited to an airspeed of 400 kn or so because the propeller tips can not exceed the speed of sound. If it does, is the efficiency gain enough to offset the speed difference on longer flights.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Richard (profile), 3 Jun 2014 @ 8:34am

      Re: Fuel Efficiency

      These propeller type aircraft can fly faster then the limit you mention - the key being the shape of the blades. This was tried a whiile back (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_GE36) but there were problems with noise.

      Apparently these have now been solved - but at present it is held up by the need for the airframe manufacturers to agree with the engine manufacturers about the configuration. Since there are three engine manufacturers (PW,GE and RR) and two airframe manufacturers (Airbus Industrie and Boeing)it is likely that the engine manufacturers will go 2-1 and no-one wants to be the 1 or to be the aiframe manufacturer who backs the 1. So there is apparently an impasse.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      nasch (profile), 3 Jun 2014 @ 11:35am

      Re: Fuel Efficiency

      Does the fuel efficiency come at the expense of speed with the open rotor designs.

      It sounds like this would be a replacement for turbofan planes running shorter routes at lower speeds. What I want to know is why is the open design so much more efficient? The article didn't explain it.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    StripeyMiata (profile), 3 Jun 2014 @ 5:36am

    The Honda design has been tried before

    In the 1970's the VFW-Fokker 614 was launched as a small regional jet, it was a massive flop - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFW-Fokker_614

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 3 Jun 2014 @ 6:58am

    JASDF orders

    Honda will get orders for their jet from the Japanese Air Self Defense Force.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 3 Jun 2014 @ 8:08am

    I wonder...

    when we'll travel in planes with this design...

    http://www.instructables.com/id/Tubular-paper-airplane/

    Made them as a kid. They flew really well.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    limbodog (profile), 3 Jun 2014 @ 9:21am

    No love for the blended body? http://silentaircraft.org/

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      nasch (profile), 3 Jun 2014 @ 11:37am

      Re:

      No love for the blended body?

      The MIT plane looks like it shares some characteristics with that plane, though not the semi-delta wing configuration.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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