• This Is the Airliner of the Future—According to Northrop Grumman
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[QUOTE=OvB;34271730]Flying wings are about as aerodynamic as a brick. Look up the YB-49 and why it sucked. If it was not for the computers in the B-2 bomber, it would be an absolute pain in the ass to fly.[/QUOTE] They are, but they don't suck because of that. They are so much lighter, and because of that, so much more fuel efficient than conventional tube and wing aircraft. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=iFail;34274459] yeah there are only 20 in active service right now, and in 08 one of them crashed. definitely a good idea for a civilian airliner.[/QUOTE] They have to design the aircrafts very carefully. One is meant to be a super stealthy bomber, another could focus more on stability.
And then we all find out those are in fact B-2's because they accidentally "bombed" a country with people.
[QUOTE=GoldenDargon;34272467]I like Airbus' design idea the most imo: [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5K1ZDs-li0[/media][/QUOTE] If you think this is futuristic I want you to make a copy of this video, keep it safe, and watch it again in 5-10 years. (Because you won't be able to stop laughing)
[quote]That programme is now on hold due to funding cutbacks.[/quote] Develop a more efficient generation of civilian airliners? Nope, pump money into military budgets so we can blow up more people in different ways.
Attention passengers, before we land at our destination we have a few "packages" to drop in Pakistan.
[QUOTE=The golden;34276351]So the "Airliner of the future" is just a airplane which uses a recycled design of a already existing plane which is hugely[B] inconvenient to fly and very unstable?[/B] Yeah, let me know when they're actually serious.[/QUOTE] no
[QUOTE=The golden;34276351]So the "Airliner of the future" is just a airplane which uses a recycled design of a already existing plane which is hugely inconvenient to fly and very unstable? Yeah, let me know when they're actually serious.[/QUOTE] Flying wings haven't been very unstable since the 70s or 80s. One without computer assistance, yes, is very unstable. But one with computer assistance, as all are if they're manufactured these days, is no less stable than a conventional bird. Don't doubt the power of computers. They can make the worst designs fly like a dream. Fun fact: Most air superiority fighters currently in use aren't aerodynamically stable, either. Their computers drop out and they fall like a brick. The Mirage and F-16 are two examples off the top of my head.
[QUOTE=cheesedelux;34275053]If you think this is futuristic I want you to make a copy of this video, keep it safe, and watch it again in 5-10 years. (Because you won't be able to stop laughing)[/QUOTE] Airlines have hardly changed in the past 5-10 years, so I don't see why they'll want to pay out their ass to have all of these types of luxuries when they can get rid of most of the space and shove double the amount of people into the equivalent of tin cans.
[QUOTE=TestECull;34277054]Flying wings haven't been very unstable since the 70s or 80s. One without computer assistance, yes, is very unstable. But one with computer assistance, as all are if they're manufactured these days, is no less stable than a conventional bird. Don't doubt the power of computers. They can make the worst designs fly like a dream. Fun fact: Most air superiority fighters currently in use aren't aerodynamically stable, either. Their computers drop out and they fall like a brick. The Mirage and F-16 are two examples off the top of my head.[/QUOTE] Airliners don't have ejection seats in case something fucks up like fighter jets, they're also made to keep flying or at least gliding without pretty much anything besides a pilot and wings. A flying wing is a casket, all it needs is the computer to fuck up and it's gone.
[QUOTE=ice445;34271276]I wonder if flying wings will really ever catch on for mass production, they require A TON of computer assistance to maintain proper balance and such. Way more shit can go wrong.[/QUOTE] No, they don't necessarily require any computer assistance at all. The Germans experimented with flying wing designs in WW2 without any computers, and successfully flew the Go-229, a flying wing design. Some modern flying wings, like the B-2, require computer control to make up for aerodynamic shortcuts- but the same can be said for many planes, not just flying wings. The F-16, for example, literally does not function without active computers, and the F-117 stalls quickly without corrections from a central processor. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=TestECull;34277054]Don't doubt the power of computers. They can make the worst designs fly like a dream. Fun fact: Most air superiority fighters currently in use aren't aerodynamically stable, either. Their computers drop out and they fall like a brick. The Mirage and F-16 are two examples off the top of my head.[/QUOTE] I can't speak for the Mirage, but the F-16 is not the same as computer-assisted stability. While the F-16 does require computer control to fly, this is because it uses a solely computer-driven fly-by-wire system to control the plane. Aerodynamically it's pretty sound, unlike most contemporary flying wings, so it won't fall out of the sky if it loses computer control. It will, however, become the 'lawn dart' as it is nicknamed by its pilots, and turn that fancy fly-by-wire into crash-by-wire.
[QUOTE=OvB;34271730]Flying wings are about as aerodynamic as a brick. Look up the YB-49 and why it sucked. If it was not for the computers in the B-2 bomber, it would be an absolute pain in the ass to fly.[/QUOTE] Actually, the flying wing is the most efficient design for a plane that has been designed thus far. The problem with the Yb-49 was that it didn't have computers in place to prevent pilots from stalling it (which is lethal in a flying wing). Also you're right catbarf, computers aren't actually necessary. But you know these designs are going to be full of aerodynamic shortcuts to cut manufacturing costs and the like.
Looks like an interesting concept, but I doubt it will become reality.
[QUOTE=ice445;34271276]I wonder if flying wings will really ever catch on for mass production, they require A TON of computer assistance to maintain proper balance and such. Way more shit can go wrong.[/QUOTE] That's a non issue. Tons of fighter jets can't actually be flown by people. There's a ridiculous amount of computer assistance. In Old-school planes, when you press down on the joystick, you're directly controlling the ailerons. In New age jets, when you press down on the joystick you simply tell the plane where you want it to go. It does the calculations on its own and adjusts the flaps accordingly. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=OvB;34271730]Flying wings are about as aerodynamic as a brick. Look up the YB-49 and why it sucked. If it was not for the computers in the B-2 bomber, it would be an absolute pain in the ass to fly.[/QUOTE] Once again, if you turned off the computers in any modern fighter aircraft and tried to fly it, it would crash and burn. We're in the computer era now, computer assistance needed to fly the thing is not a crutch anymore.
[QUOTE=umx48;34275815]Develop a more efficient generation of civilian airliners? Nope, pump money into military budgets so we can blow up more people in different ways.[/QUOTE] Who do you think designs those airliners? Do you even know who Northrop Grumman is? It is pretty much 90% military budget. 5 minutes ago I just got out of a lecture given by a Northrop Grumman engineer. Virtually every single advancement in aircraft in the past several decades has come out of military budgets. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=The golden;34286475]Civil airliners =/= fighter jets. A civil airliner needs to reliably carry several hundred people and cargo immense distances almost 24/7 while remaining stable and secure as well as having redundancy systems and backups for the many things that could go wrong. As I said above, it is possibly for untrained civilians to land modern airliners with mild guidance from the control-tower. A fighter jet doesn't need to have half of those things because it doesn't need to get 150+ people to the ground safely.[/QUOTE] Yeah so why are people bitching that it needs to be computer assisted to fly? Wouldn't computer assistance simply make it even easier for someone with 0 flight knowledge to land it?
[QUOTE=FunnyBunny;34286489]Who do you think designs those airliners? Do you even know who Northrop Grumman is? It is pretty much 90% military budget. 5 minutes ago I just got out of a lecture given by a Northrop Grumman engineer. Virtually every single advancement in aircraft in the past several decades has come out of military budgets. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] Yeah so why are people bitching that it needs to be computer assisted to fly? Wouldn't computer assistance simply make it even easier for someone with 0 flight knowledge to land it?[/QUOTE] Unless the computer system fails. Then there's the simple problems that can happen like what happened to the B-2 that crashed in Guam. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1FVxSCUGmo[/media] [quote]The cause of the crash was later determined to be moisture in the aircraft's Port Transducer Units during air data calibration, which distorted the information being sent to the bomber's air data system. As a result, the flight control computers calculated an inaccurate airspeed, and a negative angle of attack, causing the aircraft to pitch upward 30 degrees during takeoff[/quote] Don't get me wrong, I know the things are computer controlled and all that, and I like the idea of using flying wings as future commercial jets, I just think that you're putting an awful lot of trust into something that can easily fail like the B-2 crash above. Not only that, but commercial jets don't get nearly as pampered as B-2's do. Commercial jets barely get enough maintenance as it is today even. The operational costs of keeping a fleet of these in the air would be undesirable for any airline that would rather just stuff people in a 787 like sardines and not have to worry about it being unreliable. I just question how easy it would be to have a controlled landing with a flying wing design if the computers failed. You have to remember that these would be far larger than any wing we've built to date. You can't eject people out of a airline if the system has a fatal error that cannot be recovered like you can with a B-2 or modern fighter jet. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=FunnyBunny;34286410]Once again, if you turned off the computers in any modern fighter aircraft and tried to fly it, it would crash and burn. We're in the computer era now, computer assistance needed to fly the thing is not a crutch anymore.[/QUOTE] Why does everyone keep bringing up fighter aircraft? This is not about fighter aircraft. If the computer system fails in an F-15 the damage is a compressed spine from ejecting. If the computer fails in a commercial aircraft that has no backup, or is otherwise uncontrollable, potentially hundreds of people die. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] Modern Airbus have similar fly by wire systems but they have the backup of actually being flyable if said system fails. I'm not sure we'd get that out of a jumbo-wing.
[QUOTE=OvB;34286896]Don't get me wrong, I know the things are computer controlled and all that, and I like the idea of using flying wings as future commercial jets, I just think that you're putting an awful lot of trust into something that can easily fail like the B-2 crash above. Not only that, but commercial jets don't get nearly as pampered as B-2's do. Commercial jets barely get enough maintenance as it is today even. The operational costs of keeping a fleet of these in the air would be undesirable for any airline that would rather just stuff people in a 787 like sardines and not have to worry about it being unreliable. I just question how easy it would be to have a controlled landing with a flying wing design if the computers failed. You have to remember that these would be far larger than any wing we've built to date. You can't eject people out of a airline if the system has a fatal error that cannot be recovered like you can with a B-2 or modern fighter jet. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] Why does everyone keep bringing up fighter aircraft? This is not about fighter aircraft. If the computer system fails in an F-15 the damage is a compressed spine from ejecting. If the computer fails in a commercial aircraft that has no backup, or is otherwise uncontrollable, potentially hundreds of people die. [editline]18th January 2012[/editline] Modern Airbus have similar fly by wire systems but they have the backup of actually being flyable if said system fails. I'm not sure we'd get that out of a jumbo-wing.[/QUOTE] Not all flying wings need a computer to fly normally
[QUOTE=wewt!;34287333]Not all flying wings need a computer to fly normally[/QUOTE] Kind of like how a computer doesn't need a monitor to run normally. I mean, it still turns on and you [I]could [/I]do stuff, but it's so difficult that there's almost no point in even trying.
[QUOTE=TestECull;34277054]Flying wings haven't been very unstable since the 70s or 80s. One without computer assistance, yes, is very unstable. But one with computer assistance, as all are if they're manufactured these days, is no less stable than a conventional bird. Don't doubt the power of computers. They can make the worst designs fly like a dream. Fun fact: Most air superiority fighters currently in use aren't aerodynamically stable, either. Their computers drop out and they fall like a brick. The Mirage and F-16 are two examples off the top of my head.[/QUOTE] When they say "stable" they don't mean the aircraft can't function manually. Stability refers to the tendency of the aircraft to return to a neutral flying position with no input. This is why many small aircraft have the wings mounted above the fuselage. This makes for an extremely stable aircraft for obvious reasons. A cessna 172 is an excellent example. If the pilot were to pass out and not provide any inputs, the aircraft would level out and veeeery slowly gain altitude until it ran out of fuel. An F-16 however does not have a natural tendency to return to center. The idea being that the tendency to do so means you have to put more force into turning, which in turn makes for a less maneuverable aircraft. Flying them manually is certainly going to be difficult, but they will not drop out of the sky. Well, not in the case of the F-16 anyways. I have no useful knowledge of the Mirage. A delta wing design is indeed inherently extremely dangerous without computer assistance though, so that one may very well get you killed without a computer keeping close track of your stall speed. [editline]19th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=chimitos;34287414]Kind of like how a computer doesn't need a monitor to run normally. I mean, it still turns on and you [I]could [/I]do stuff, but it's so difficult that there's almost no point in even trying.[/QUOTE] Flying wings faaaaar predate fly by wire systems. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_N-1M[/url] Northrop loved flying wings.
[QUOTE=chimitos;34287414]I mean, it still turns on and you [I]could [/I]do stuff, but it's so difficult that there's almost no point in even trying.[/QUOTE] That's not true at all. Again, flying wings were extensive pursued by the Germans in WW2, and they got it working properly. It's an engineering challenge but it is definitely doable without computer assistance.
[QUOTE=catbarf;34290620]That's not true at all. Again, flying wings were extensive pursued by the Germans in WW2, and they got it working properly. It's an engineering challenge but it is definitely doable without computer assistance.[/QUOTE] Hell, they even tried manufacturing civilian flying wing gliders in the '40s.
[QUOTE=chimitos;34287414]Kind of like how a computer doesn't need a monitor to run normally. I mean, it still turns on and you [I]could [/I]do stuff, but it's so difficult that there's almost no point in even trying.[/QUOTE] No, not at all
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