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.
- Honda has a luxury jet, Hondajet, going into commercial production. Hondajet’s engines are mounted in an unconventional way — sitting on pedestals above each wing. [url]
- More fuel efficient plane engines could incorporate open rotor designs. Open rotor engines can have pretty large diameters and not require heavy shielding… and they look cool. [url]
- This fuel efficient concept combines a fuselage that provides some lift along with rear-mounted engines. Placing two engines right next to each other in the rear might be a problem if one of them fails and takes out the only other engine on this plane. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.
Filed Under: airplane, aviation, engine design, fuel efficient, hondajet, jets
Companies: honda
Comments on “DailyDirt: Weird Airplane Designs”
I'm ashamed, Techdirt
No love for Forward-Swept Wings?
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.
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.
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.
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
JASDF orders
Honda will get orders for their jet from the Japanese Air Self Defense Force.
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.
No love for the blended body? http://silentaircraft.org/
Re: 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.