Boeing Developing Wing-Body Aircraft
Since the Wright Brothers first took flight at Kitty Hawk, passenger airplanes have mainly resembled a flying cigar tube with wings, a ubiquitous design that has defined aviation for nearly a century.
But in a nondescript office park in Long Beach, 25 Boeing engineers are quietly working on a radical new concept that would defy convention and transform air travel.
The engineers at so-called Phantom Works, a Boeing research laboratory that focuses on the most advanced aircraft technology, are developing a plane that looks a lot like a large flying stingray.
The blended wing-body aircraft, as it is called, would carry as many as 800 passengers in double-deck compartments that blend into the wing. And unlike the traditional airplane, there is no fuselage or tail with dorsal and vertical fins.
The design, first pioneered in the 1920s in Los Angeles by the legendary Jack Northrop, has come in and out of vogue over the decades. The flying wing, as it is also known, was the design basis for the B-2 Stealth bomber, developed by Northrop Grumman Corp. in the 1980s. But never before has a passenger aircraft used the flying-wing concept.
It could be at least another decade before the plane makes its way onto an airport tarmac, but the concept is drawing increasing attention from the aerospace industry and, more significantly, from Boeing’s top brass.
The biggest challenge is not technical, Boeing officials claim, but rather overcoming potential passenger’s reluctance to sit inside the wing of an aircraft. Boeing is conducting focus group interviews to gauge reaction.
The passengers would be seated in two decks, each with five parallel compartments running the length of the aircraft. Because most of the passengers will not sit near windows, the backs of each seat would have a video monitor similar to display screens found on 777 jets that could provide an outside view. Several doors in the front of the wing as well as in the back would allow for easier emergency exits.
If it goes forward, the plane could represent Boeing’s most potent weapon against archrival Airbus Industrie, a European consortium that hopes to topple the world’s premiere aerospace company with a new super-jumbo jet. The Seattle-based aircraft maker has been battered in recent months by Airbus, which last December decided to begin producing the world’s largest airplane.
The double-decker A-380, which is expected to start operating in 2006, would seat about 600 passengers and challenge Boeing’s 747, a venerable aircraft that seats about 420 passengers and has dominated the large-aircraft market for three decades.
Airbus signed up seven airlines with 60 orders for the airplane, intensifying the competition between the world’s two largest commercial aircraft makers. In response, Boeing has proposed a modified version of the 747 that could seat as many as 500 passengers but has had no takers.
Industry analysts believe that Boeing’s 747 plan might not be enough to counter Airbus’ threat if the market for such super-jumbo jets grows to 1,500 planes, as Airbus contends. Robert L. Aboulafia, director of aviation consulting for Teal Group, a Fairfax, Va., research firm, said the A-380 might be premature as long as the airline industry continues favoring the hub system that connects airports with smaller planes.
“The market just isn’t there yet,” Aboulafia said. “The A-380 is unlikely to be profitable until well into the following decade. Plenty of time, in short, for Boeing to vanquish the A-380 with an all-new design. If, that is, Wall Street will let them spend the development money.”
Boeing officials seem cognizant of the economic realities and have been quietly dropping hints of the new plane’s development to gauge Wall Street’s response.
At a conference in New York last week, the head of Boeing’s commercial airplane division told investors that the company was mulling over some futuristic concepts along with more conventional upgrades to its 757 and 767 models.
“We are looking at blended wing bodies,” Alan Mulally said, cautioning that the design was still in infancy and not “imminent.” “You could fly around in a wing someday.”
The idea of a flying wing has been floated for decades and the B-2 is one of the more successful examples after some spectacular failures. Edwards Air Force Base, the nation’s top flight test center, is named after the pilot who was killed in a flying-wing aircraft.
Jack Northrop unsuccessfully fought for the concept’s acceptance for decades even after the Air Force canceled a flying-wing program in the 1940s and ordered all the test planes destroyed. Thirty years later, the Air Force approved the B-2 bomber.
The Pentagon approved a special clearance in 1981 for the aged aircraft pioneer to view a blueprint for the B-2, which at the time was a highly sensitive military secret. He died days later.
With the exception of the B-2, the concept never quite took off for commercial purposes. But with recent advances in composite materials and aerodynamics research, a flying wing is again gaining attention.
“It looks different, but it isn’t that much different from the B-2 and we know that works,” said Robert H. Liebeck, a Boeing senior fellow and program manager for the BWB program, as it is called within Phantom Works.
Because the engine, wing and the body are fused together forming a single lifting surface, the aircraft can fly more efficiently and carry more passengers than a typical tube-and-wing plane, Liebeck said. The overall width of the plane would be slightly wider than the 747, but the length would be significantly less. It could use existing runways.
As designed, the plane would be able to carry as many as 800 passengers with about 25% less fuel than a current commercial jet but fly just as fast and as far or farther. As currently planned, the plane, with three engines mounted on the top of the wing, would have a range of about 7,000 miles.
The plane would also require about 30% fewer parts to make and emit less noise and pollution, Liebeck contends. Another advantage is that the design can be easily scaled so that a plane could be made seating as few as 200 passengers or as many as 800.
A 17-foot model made by Stanford University made a successful flight in July 1997. In addition to Stanford, Boeing is working with graduate engineering students at USC and the University of Florida in developing the plane.
A second, 35-foot model is under construction and is scheduled for a flight test in 2003. One technical question will be whether the plane can recover from a stall, which occurs when the wings don’t create enough lift to support the plane’s weight.
Engineers at Phantom Works began drafting the flying-wing design in 1993 when they were given a $90,000 grant from NASA to look at alternative configurations to the tube-and-wing design that had become the industry’s standard for passenger airplanes.
Phantom Works at the time was under McDonnell Douglas Corp., which was later acquired by Boeing. NASA followed up with another $3-million grant. When Boeing acquired McDonnell in 1997, the company decided to continue the program.
While initial plans call for a production plane by 2015, Liebeck said the blended wing-body plane could begin flying as early as 2009 or 2010 if Boeing officials decided to accelerate the program.
“It could be flying in seven years, if they said it’s an emergency,” which just happens to be about the time the industry will know whether the A-380 will become a boon or bust deal for Airbus, Liebeck said. “Boeing has got to decide soon what it wants to do.”
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Flight Plan
The BWB, or the blended wing-body aircraft, would be able to carry up to 800 passengers at about the same speed and altitude as the 416-seat Boeing 747-400--currently the world’s largest commercial jet--but use a quarter less fuel and generate less noise.
