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wxw 1 days ago [-]
Haven't heard of this company before. A good synopsis I dug up in their fundraising announcement:
> JetZero, co-founded in 2020 by start-up veteran Tom O’Leary and aerospace legend Mark Page, is developing the world’s first commercial all-wing airplane. With up to 50% better fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions compared to existing commercial airliners, JetZero's Z4 will offer the aviation industry a clear path to achieving its 2050 net-zero goals while also elevating the passenger experience. Working alongside the US Air Force, NASA, and the FAA, and backed by decades of investment and research into blended wing technology. JetZero looks to enter commercial service in the early 2030s.
Where an "all-wing" airplane is, kudos to Gemini,
> one that merges the main body and wings into a single lifting surface. This can reduce drag, lower fuel burn, and expand interior space.
gertrunde 21 hours ago [-]
I think the more commonly used term is Blended Wing Body.
(And actually, now I've just noticed they do use the term further down in the body of the text).
port11 20 hours ago [-]
Dumb question but if the all-wing design has major advantages (and basically no negatives?), why haven't we been pursuing this for a long time?
You’re telling me that just recently a random startup thought they’d work on it? It’s not exactly startup territory…
ctippett 20 hours ago [-]
The design has been in the works since at least the late 1980s which is when the B-2 stealth bomber was developed.
For an all-wing design to work the onboard flight control system needs to make thousands of microscopic surface adjustments every second to keep the flight stable. This is much more practical with today's computing power and technology, even if the concept may have been thought of long ago.
Yep. I'd say the way forward for testing is the freighter, which doesn't have evacuation issues, doesn't unload at passenger airbridges and (if packed properly) doesn't have the same sensitivity to rolling motions.
But freighters generally have lower utilization on less price-sensitive routes, so operators tend not to care so much about fuel economy (and for related reasons, usually aren't new aircraft). So however much easier the route to certification might be, it's a horrible market...
wiz21c 22 hours ago [-]
"A clear path to zero": what a joke. It will be 25% less fuel, 75% SAF which are nowhere close (how will one grow enough without fertilizers ?), or worse, hydrogen which is even more nowhere close (how much energy you need to produce H2 ?).
just ditch the plane. That will be so much money you can invest in net-positive technologies.
conorcleary 22 hours ago [-]
If the design is more efficient, then eventually the fuel you put into it can be replaced by your magic solution.
cassepipe 21 hours ago [-]
Except there is another issue, how many people do you fit in this shape ?
If you can only fly 30 people that's not very efficient as it would mean more flights.
Also I believe the further away you are from the rotation axis of the plane where it turns left or right, the more unpleasant your flight may be
phoghed 21 hours ago [-]
The very comment thread we’re in has a quote stating you get more interior space because of the incorporation of wings into the body.
They appear to make more sense for large passenger jets because the interior volume scales better. There’s a ton of practical concerns though.
They won’t fit into existing airport setups. Seats near the wing will move waaay more than near the center during banking turns (maybe they’ll be cheaper lol)
I don’t think it’s a given they’ll replace what we’ve got, but who knows.
kelnos 15 hours ago [-]
The website says it can seat 250.
gertrunde 21 hours ago [-]
Regarding capacity, iirc, one of the advantages of this style of body is greater internal volume.
And another company working in the same space, Natilus, is planning to fit 150-250 passengers on theirs, somewhat comparable capacity-wise to a 757, but about 30% smaller length/width.
ZeroGravitas 1 days ago [-]
Tangentially related Good news: You can avoid about half the greenhouse effects of flight by slightly changing the flight plan to avoid cloud forming regions
Bad news: this generally wasn't counted before and when counted roughly doubles the impact so in some senses you're back to where you started.
But it's a much lower hanging fruit than anything else and as yet we're not doing it.
kubafu 1 days ago [-]
A lot of us is avoiding more by choosing not to fly.
dash2 24 hours ago [-]
I hope I'm not overinterpreting, but I get the sense that you think that's morally better than simply avoiding contrails. If so then this is surely a mistake! While an individual who imposes heavy costs on himself to do something socially valuable is certainly demonstrating commitment to the cause, the best solution for society is the one with the lowest costs.
lavela 24 hours ago [-]
Please explain how more flights with optimal routing are environmentally cheaper than less flights with optimal routing.
gblargg 23 hours ago [-]
Sounds like parent was taking into account all costs, not just certain ones.
mmooss 6 hours ago [-]
Actually, lots of people acting together regularly accomplish things - almost everything wortwhile is accomplished that way, probably back to our non-homo ancestors.
As a simple matter, it keeps my city clean - we all put garbage in the bins (yes there's a law, but no way could it be enforced if the great majority of people didn't do it already). More dramatically and recently, the protests in India.
> society
Society is us - you, me, everyone. Nobody else is coming to help us.
I'm responsible for what I do, for the consequences of my actions. It's embarassing to say it's someone else's job (especially when the someone else is 'society'), and therefore I'm not going to do anything.
dash2 4 hours ago [-]
I think you've misunderstood my comment. I understand that people can do things together. My point was that the best thing to do together is to solve our problems at lowest total cost, and that choosing a high-cost solution can be individual "virtue signalling".
mlrtime 21 hours ago [-]
Hint: It's performative. The people who are actually doing this don't come to HN to announce it.
jtrip 18 hours ago [-]
This is an issue, a question of an issue, with the maximalist position. By simply using trains wherever possible and avoiding 'frivolous' travel a huge impact can be achieved on one's carbon footprint.
iamgopal 1 days ago [-]
wandering is human nature, we can not avoid it. with tech, almost 99% reason to travel can be avoided, we human as a nature, we will not skip it.
ktallett 1 days ago [-]
Wandering can be slower paced, or to places that are magical but nearer and connected via alternative to planes. Also we can avoid using planes for less important things, like business meetings etc.
imjonse 19 hours ago [-]
homo sapiens could avoid wandering in the skies for 200k years, yes we can avoid it. Finding joy in life should not really be correlated with flying often to faraway places.
orphereus 1 days ago [-]
I don't think that not travelling is the solution. A lot of people cannot avoid flying.
johanvts 1 days ago [-]
Just stop subsidizing flying, maybe even tax the fuel a fraction of the value it’s destroying and I bet most of flying will suddenly turn out to actually be completely avoidable.
shrubby 23 hours ago [-]
Yup. Make the flyers pay the infrastructure costs based on the environmental effects. It's not too complicated.
tim333 22 hours ago [-]
It is a bit complicated as flying isn't much subsidised in cash terms and if you put large taxes on fuel, flights will divert to nearby countries with less tax.
In the UK there is air passenger duty which is for example £102 per passenger on economy seats to the US. I think they are reluctant to raise it too much incase business shifts elsewhere.
shrubby 19 hours ago [-]
We're afraid of the zillionaire tantrums, thus this should be a coordinated effort.
I'm seeing it from both sides of the isles that people are being fed up with the overlords.
But currently the zillionaire tantrums control the future so you're right.
ChrisMarshallNY 23 hours ago [-]
I think advances in remote work tech have had a huge impact on business travel.
Zoom beats Boom.
mlrtime 21 hours ago [-]
Zoom is also probably the worst software I'm forced to use. The UI and fat client are from 2000.
dbspin 22 hours ago [-]
Insane take - this is just ensuring that the only people who get to enjoy travel are the rich. Nothing in our society is improved by taking a privilege that's widely enjoyed and restricting it to the wealthy or very wealthy.
port11 20 hours ago [-]
It’s a privilege with most externalities _not_ taken into account, i.e. it’s hurting us all because we ignore its true cost and make it available in vast quantities.
Since the global South will suffer the most from climate change, they might disagree with developed nations ‘subsiding’ flights.
dbspin 10 hours ago [-]
The phrase the global south elides the fact that those countries are far higher in inequality than the West. Wealthy elites being the only ones able to travel isn't a solution to climate change, it's a recipe for a degree of social control we haven't seen in a century. We can fight climate change, and increase mobility, standard of living and freedom for all. There is an enormous amount of low hanging fruit here - from switching to renewables, to moving militaries off gas and oil, to switching cargo ships to renewable energy. Trapping humanity in their nation of birth shouldn't be the go to first step. The consequences of that degree of social control aren't being allowed for here.
mmooss 5 hours ago [-]
I'm very willing to subsidize universal access to food, shelter, education, healthcare ... not long-haul air travel.
johanvts 20 hours ago [-]
I dont disagree, but that's just how capitalism works. And it does solve a problem, there will be less airtravel.
beepbooptheory 21 hours ago [-]
Why is it still considered a 'privilege' if everyone should absolutely be able to use it?
CalRobert 1 days ago [-]
In many instances there are alternatives. Amsterdam to Berlin is served by good rail (except when DB are crappy) and flight options. NYC to DC or Boston. Maybe, someday, SF to LA, and others.
jtwaleson 1 days ago [-]
IMHO you can remove the "good" and "except when". DB is 30% of the time a frustrating experience, which I've noticed makes me want to avoid it, even though I love trains. Trains in the rest of Western Europe are pretty great!
port11 20 hours ago [-]
Boy what happened to DB since 2022? That was when I last travelled in Germany and I was never able to relate to everyone’s online complaints about them.
Did Berlin to Nessau through small routes: wonderful. Berlin to Prague? Stellar, if long. Berlin to Munich? Amazing all 4-5 times, unless they forget to stock up on soft pretzels.
CalRobert 19 hours ago [-]
Insane delays and cancellations. I’ve taken them Amsterdam to Berlin, Utrecht to Frankfurt, etc and only one trip has managed not to be multiple hours late. In one case a train ended early and I had to run like hell with my folding bike to cram on to a packed bus for an hour ride to the next station.
CalRobert 22 hours ago [-]
Fair, Deutsche Bahn is awful. Went to Berlin with them last November and instead of getting in at 9:00 PM we got in at 1 AM, which was especially horrible given we had a 6 and 8 year old with us.
jtwaleson 14 hours ago [-]
They just cancelled a train from Amsterdam to Munich for me and never replied to my form for a refund. I called them about. Had to spend 600 extra for a sleeper instead.
ufmace 18 hours ago [-]
Ehhhh I think it'd be more accurate to say that in a small percentage of potential routes there are alternatives.
shrubby 23 hours ago [-]
Most people on the planet can avoid flying alright.
The addicts cannot? Or who cannot? Anyone with money cannot?
Homo fricking economicus for you alright.
tngranados 1 days ago [-]
But even more people can
delusional 1 days ago [-]
We should be careful not to confound a call to reduce with a call to eliminate. I don't think most people want to completely abolish modern air travel.
how do know if a route would go through cloud forming regions
rafram 22 hours ago [-]
Google Flights shows a “contrail warming potential” stat on each flight result.
hahahaa 1 days ago [-]
Not you the airline operations using weather radar I assume.
CrimsonRain 1 days ago [-]
because doing this will increase costs instead of performative actions.
dr_dshiv 22 hours ago [-]
So, getting better at manipulating clouds will help prevent planetary heating. I assume there is a huge amount of public support for this scientific research?
cassepipe 21 hours ago [-]
No, you misunderstood what this is about
dr_dshiv 20 hours ago [-]
I thought this was about being able to fly without harm to the environment— which it sounds like we could do if we master clouds.
cassepipe 18 hours ago [-]
Sure but you extrapolated to weather modification, the initial idea is to go around/avoid some area
dr_dshiv 12 hours ago [-]
…as a form of cloud control. If we are already doing it inadvertently, we may as well do it well.
iamwil 1 days ago [-]
What I really want, is a plane that can load passengers like containers--or like a rollercoaster car. Of course, it should be comfortable. I just mean that the passenger compartment should be modular. So you can put your luggage in and get settled while sitting in the airport, and then when the plane comes in, it just side-loads everyone all at once. Once landed, it just slides everyone off, and you can just
I know that the crew uses the typical seating time to refuel and load luggage in the underbelly, but one can dream of not having to wait to get off the airplane.
daishi424 1 days ago [-]
So, essentially that's how it works in the game Elite: Dangerous where you load and unload the passengers in cabins which are measured in tons. They can even be stolen mid-flight by anyone with a hatch breaker drone. Unfortunately, you cannot jettison them in the void of space.
Then there are the Imperial slaves which are considered cargo and not passengers, but it's a different story...
Stevvo 1 days ago [-]
That's an odd connection to make. The depiction of passengers in Elite Dangerous is limited to some numbers on a UI screen.
gertrunde 17 hours ago [-]
Those kinds of designs have been proposed before iirc, mostly with a large section of the fuselage that drops in/out.
There's Airbus's US patent US9193460B2 if you fancy a comedy read!
cassepipe 21 hours ago [-]
I just want to go to an hospital, get an injection, fall asleep and wake up on a bed at another hospital somewhere else.
xstas1 9 hours ago [-]
This is actually the plot of the hit TV show Severance.
wadim 21 hours ago [-]
Apart from just being highly unrealistic and not very practical, hospitals are much worse than airports in every way. Why not just get injected at the airport itself? And why an injection? Why not inhale some dream gas? Less intrusive and scales better.
cassepipe 18 hours ago [-]
I don't really care about the implementation, I'll let you figure out the details, work your magic
port11 20 hours ago [-]
I would argue that the most wastage is in how people embark and disembark. During Covid I flew a few times back home and they did line-by-line from the middle through both doors, and that was quite good and efficient.
singular_atomic 1 days ago [-]
that sounds like an absolute nightmare haha
FrustratedMonky 21 hours ago [-]
An engineering nightmare. But as a passenger, it might be nice. Can take time getting on to the container and settled, and then the whole container gets loaded.
YorickPeterse 20 hours ago [-]
I think that's called a train.
20 hours ago [-]
xnx 1 days ago [-]
Big screens are an OK workaround for no passenger windows, but they still have to contend with severe structural pressurization challenges, strict emergency evacuation rules, and incompatibility with current airport gates.
briandw 1 days ago [-]
In a conventional aircraft you sit on the roll axis. In a blended wing body design you can have off-axis motion that can increase motion sickness. Rather than rolling with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, you move up and down when the aircraft banks. Not necessarily a deal breaker, but an additional difference to deal with.
JumpCrisscross 1 days ago [-]
> In a blended wing body design you can have off-axis motion that can increase motion sickness
This sounds fixable in avionics and training. (Shallow, gradual banks.)
Note, too, that a larger lifting body needs to bank less to execute the same turn as a craft with more loading.
amluto 1 days ago [-]
> Note, too, that a larger lifting body needs to bank less to execute the same turn as a craft with more loading.
This is not really helpful for passenger comfort. For a turn to be comfortable, you want the turn to be such that the effective force the passengers feel has no sideways (relative to the passengers) component, and the required roll angle is only a function of the velocity and turning radius. The aircraft design is irrelevant.
Coördination stops lateral passenger movement. It does nothing for up and down. (Coördination is also about more than comfort. It keeps the flow attached to the wing. If your passengers are slipping, so is your wing.) In a roll, with a tubular fuselage, everyone—pilot and passengers—feel about the same vertical Gs. OP’s point is in a flying wing, the folks on the tips will lift up or drop down relative to the pilot and thus experience extra Gs.
My response is (a) this can be controlled in avionics and training, i.e. don’t do that, and (b) now that I think about it, vertical Gs aren’t as sickening as lateral ones.
Specify a maximum roll rate in training and normal-law software and this problem is solved
amluto 23 hours ago [-]
> Specify a maximum roll rate in training and normal-law software and this problem is solved
I’m wondering whether there are major airfields with traffic patterns that require roll rates that would exceed whatever maximum is desired for comfort. My intuition is that the situation would be tolerable at most airfields but that normal-law limits that are too restrictive could be dangerous.
JumpCrisscross 15 hours ago [-]
> major airfields with traffic patterns that require roll rates
One, this is where the more lifting body turning faster with less roll kicks in. Two, I suspect those airfields would also be the last ones to add terminals that can dock with a non-standard plane.
amluto 3 hours ago [-]
> this is where the more lifting body turning faster with less roll kicks in
Can you explain what you mean? If an aircraft follows a given trajectory (center of mass position as a function of time x(t) where x is a 3D position), then it has an acceleration a(t) that is just the second derivative of x(t) and has nothing to do with the shape of the airframe.
Now account for gravity and kinematics: the force per unit mass that must be applied to the airframe is F/m = a + g • ẑ (ẑ is the upward unit vector).
The exact same result applies to a person inside the aircraft. If you want comfortable flight you need F/m to have no sideways component from the perspective of the passenger (and in the absence of gimballed seats the passenger is facing the same way as the airframe).
So far none of this has anything to do with the shape of the lifting body. And I’m wondering why you think more lifting body makes much difference. There are only two real flight parameters knobs you can turn to achieve this condition. You can roll, and you can sideslip. And, unless my intuition about the geometry is quite wrong, you would need a very extreme sideslip angle (pointing the nose quite close to the center of curvature) to have much effect on the required roll angle. So the roll angle needed is mostly a function of the angle of the acceleration vector plus gravity relative to the velocity and not much of a function of how the airframe is able to generate lift.
For another way to think of it, imagine a fancy rocket performing the exact same maneuver with no lift or drag whatsoever. Either the rocket could point itself toward the center of curvature (adjusted for gravity as above) and use its main engines to generate the required acceleration (extreme sideslip), or it could point roughly the same direction as its velocity vector and use a sideways-firing rocket to generate the required acceleration. If the latter, then, for passenger comfort, the roll angle needs to be such that the sideways rocket is in the front/back/up/down plane with respect to the passengers, which determines the required roll angle.
And I don’t see how any of this has anything to do with the same of a lifting body or the actual capabilities of the maneuvering thrusters of a hypothetical rocket. On a given flight path, you have a constrained set of valid roll, pitch, and yaw angles.
decimalenough 23 hours ago [-]
> Coördination
A few years ago, I would your use of diaeresis an admirable quirk. But now, especially given the em-dashes, I'm wondering if you're an LLM overtrained on the New Yorker.
ben_w 18 hours ago [-]
I've been following JumpCrisscross's comments for years, either he's real or he's gone to the trouble of fine-tuning the LLM to sound like himself.
(Myself, I've been doing em-dashes since about 2012, I think I found out by accident that you got them on MacOS from option-shift-minus after finding out by accident you could get en-dash from option-minus)
hahahaa 1 days ago [-]
I learnt on mentour pilot (or maybe captains speaking?) that the airbus most of the time optimizes for comfort by having a constant g force as you ascend or descend or something like that. Unless you are high aoa. So there are systems that so this sort of passenger comfort thing for sure.
xnx 20 hours ago [-]
True, but I have to guess it would feel like a real rollercoaster when making small quick adjustments while landing.
VectorLock 1 days ago [-]
Sounds fixable by making the outer seats cheaper.
unsnap_biceps 1 days ago [-]
I don't understand your point. Does the wider passenger compartment leads to more extreme transitions at the edges? Is there something else at play I'm not thinking of?
mlyle 1 days ago [-]
Picture being on the end of the wing and how much you move up or down when the plane rolls.
An airliner entering a 30 degree roll over 3 seconds would have passengers pop up or down 25 feet, with at least +0.3 and -0.3G of acceleration. It would come with a "going over the top of the roller coaster" feeling. This is in addition to the roll / rotation.
Yaw is interesting for similar reasons.
numpad0 1 days ago [-]
sin(bank_angle) x cabin_width/2 = max_vertical_displacement_at_angle
deadbabe 1 days ago [-]
Just gimbal the seats.
fugaziboutit 1 days ago [-]
New commercial seating design: Oops, All Pinch Points!
beau_g 1 days ago [-]
Bean bag chair seats solve every problem.
fastball 1 days ago [-]
Gimbal the floor?
1 days ago [-]
NegativeLatency 1 days ago [-]
Doesn’t fix translation?
cr125rider 1 days ago [-]
Simply noclip the passengers!
samplifier 1 days ago [-]
Might as well iddqd and idkfa at that point. Or grantme all. Pick your flavor.
mmh0000 1 days ago [-]
That only works if the engines move the planet around the airplane.
ffsm8 1 days ago [-]
Great, so there is the solution!
azza2110 1 days ago [-]
No way. Looking out the window is one of the joys of flying.
Picking out my house, seeing tiny cars on a remote highway, etc. Even 100+ MP cameras and high resolution screens won't come close to that level of detail.
bruce511 1 days ago [-]
Only a small fraction of current flyers get window seats. And the view from the isle seat or middle row is non-existent.
And that's before we talk about night flights when there's nothing to see, flights over water when there's nothing to see and so on.
So yes, I'm sure some people like windows. But the majority have demonstrated that they're just fine flying without them.
noduerme 1 days ago [-]
Not to mention the cretins who put their windows down for the whole flight.
JSR_FDED 1 days ago [-]
Except when everyone is trying to sleep and one person has their window up
noduerme 1 days ago [-]
I've been that guy, but only if the scenery is interesting. Still, my attitude is that at noon, people don't need to have a blanket placed over their cage like parrots to make them sleep.
I also was on a flight once that had a very bouncy landing with all the windows down - when I didn't realize we were anywhere near the ground yet. I'm not into tuning out reality to that degree, and don't really feel obligated to help anyone else do so either ;)
bruce511 1 days ago [-]
Regulations require that window shades be up (open) during take off and landing.
I was sitting next to a passenger once who was asked by the steward to raise the window shade.
While doing it, they asked "why". Answering for the steward I said "it's so Fire and Rescue can see into the plane if we crash". (Which is true, I used to work at airport fire and rescue.)
The steward looked at me with a "that's not helpful" look. My bad :( .
Although I think it's still useful for people to understand things are done for their safety. Not that we expect to crash, and most don't, but every little thing that might improve survival is done. That encourages rather than discourages me.
hahahaa 1 days ago [-]
Im with you. I watched Mayday. So I am not gonna inflate my life jacket on the plane as I don't want to drown in the sinking fuselage. But the briefing makes it sound like a suggestion so the briefing people hardly listen to hardly presses the point. But if you know why you wouldn't do it.
kelnos 15 hours ago [-]
> The steward looked at me with a "that's not helpful" look.
I get that they don't want people to panic, but I think an attitude of coddling people like that isn't productive.
echoangle 1 days ago [-]
Isn’t it also so you can look out to see if the emergency exits on that side are usable or if there is a fire or excessive debris blocking the exit?
bruce511 22 hours ago [-]
Yes, that's a factor as well. If you're opening a door (or emergency exit) you should look first to see if that side of the plane is on fire.
But obviously you can open it to look, and there's only a small number that would apply to.
So it's a factor, but the primary reason is being able to look in.
ButlerianJihad 1 days ago [-]
My home airport is Sky Harbor in Phoenix. There has been at least one instance where the flight crew has required all passengers to close all our window shades while the aircraft was not in motion. And they said this was to prevent overheating from sunlight coming inside.
And I was rather miffed about missing out on the view outside, because as a technical guy, I totally enjoy seeing all the activity at an airport! Half the fun of flying!
bruce511 22 hours ago [-]
While not in motion, or while in flight, it's not really an issue.
Takeoffs and landings are the biggest risk times (and also the best proximity to Fire and Rescue). In hot environments reducing heat load in the plane can definitely improve comfort. Bummer about missing the action though...
rc5150 1 days ago [-]
On a airplane, one man's noon is another man's 4am. Your attitude is socially problematic.
xnx 20 hours ago [-]
Eye masks allow everyone to control their personal light level without making other people responsible.
Cider9986 1 days ago [-]
Eye mask is requirement no matter the window position.
adaml_623 1 days ago [-]
I love looking out plane windows at night. Distant lightning storms, cities, fishing boats, highways, country borders lit up and stretching as far as you can see.
articulatepang 1 days ago [-]
But are you willing to pay 10-20% more for that joy? I personally would rather pay less money to fly, not get to see out the window, and spend those dollars on, say, a fancier meal at the destination. Or to have an extra day at the destination if my trip length is money-bound rather than time-bound. Or put those dollars towards an extra hour of childcare. Or … I have so many uses for dollars that give me more utility than “see out the window while flying”.
Where that number comes from: they claim 50% reduction in fuel consumption, which sounds doubtful to me, and fuel is about a third of flight costs, and I’m making some generous assumptions around perfect competition.
carlosjobim 1 days ago [-]
You would change the experience of the glory of flying for food instead? Live while you're alive!
dzhiurgis 1 days ago [-]
My primary destination is Europe <> NZ which is about 24 hours in air so personally I'd give up everything for flat seat. Doesn't have to be business class seat - just something barest of the bare, basically bunk beds.
Thing is with current structure airlines would dilute business class too much and airplane manufacturers would increase density all while decreasing fuel use per passenger - none of which is desirable.
karmajunkie 1 days ago [-]
it’s cute you think that’s going to show up in lower ticket costs instead of the company’s profit margin.
jrk 1 days ago [-]
Commercial air travel is extremely competitive and has very low margins.
samplifier 1 days ago [-]
Sounds like a race to the bottom. Mmm bad pun.
articulatepang 12 hours ago [-]
We don't really have to guess: as jet engines became more fuel-efficient, inflation-adjusted prices for air tickets dropped. And as oil prices fluctuate, so do ticket prices. There's a bunch of noise in both these trends but the best explanation for them is that competition between airlines drives prices to roughly the cost of provision, of which 30% or so is fuel.
rapnie 1 days ago [-]
Make the entire hull 'transparent' by wall covering screens. Think The Sphere in Vegas. Some fans to blow the wind through your hair, and now you are gladly paying extra for the bird-like experience ;)
xnx 20 hours ago [-]
Airplanes might be one of the least ridiculous spaces to wear VR headsets in public.
seydor 1 days ago [-]
Skylights, Or floor windows for the freaky
carodgers 1 days ago [-]
Also the screen sizes they are showing have got to be exceedingly heavy.
hankbond 1 days ago [-]
I know every gram is accounted for in aerospace but OLEDs weighs so little, especially if you can just heatsink into existing metal structures nearby.
3D30497420 1 days ago [-]
I'd wager a bunch of OLEDs will be lighter than built-in windows with all the structural reinforcing necessary to make them safe.
ajuc 1 days ago [-]
Make the floor transparent.
colordrops 1 days ago [-]
I'm fine with not looking out of the window if the seat is comfortable and I can get to the bathroom more easily. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Window enjoyers such as yourself will still be able to get the window seats.
1 days ago [-]
stickfigure 1 days ago [-]
Bullshit. Last time I flew internationally, only two of the eight seats had window access.
Interior isle seats cost as much as window seats in airlines that charge for position. People just want space.
JSR_FDED 1 days ago [-]
I don’t know how many people are claustrophobic, but for me this would be a non-starter.
Edit: apparently 12.5% of the population has claustrophobia. If 5% of flyers choose a different airline due to simulated windows that would wipe out any cost benefit from fuel savings.
unsnap_biceps 1 days ago [-]
I don't think it is that simple. If a route has mixed offerings and the cheaper option is the windowless plane, it's likely to be full and they'll save on fuel costs for the full flight and can charge extra for a normal flight off hours and come out way ahead.
VectorLock 1 days ago [-]
I give absolutely less than zero f's about no windows for 2" more legroom.
numpad0 1 days ago [-]
IIRC, minimum one window for each rows is a safety requirement, so that firefighters can see inside a burning plane or something. I think that is believed to be how that fence appeared.
evolve2k 1 days ago [-]
Be nice to not have to deal with that one guy who didn’t close their window when it’s dark cabin time on long multi-Timezone flights; leaving the sun to blare in when you’re really trying to get some shut eye.
Carrok 1 days ago [-]
Just bring a sleep mask.
bathtub365 1 days ago [-]
I only travel in classes where I know they will provide one.
notahacker 20 hours ago [-]
It would definitely be cheaper to shell out $5 for your own :D
enahs-sf 1 days ago [-]
The gates thing was my first thought when I saw the design although a staircase on the tarmac could be a cheap workaround.
thadk 1 days ago [-]
Would dropping airplane windows lower radiation exposure somewhat, especially on those polar routes?
jandrewrogers 1 days ago [-]
No, virtually all the radiation with the exception of UV is passing straight through the airframe. The protection an aircraft body offers is negligible.
rendaw 1 days ago [-]
What do economy seats look like? I can't imagine they all have wrap-around video...
cheema33 1 days ago [-]
I imagine they would look similar to what they look now. You will have a 7" monitor in front. You can use it watch movies or look outside.
TEHERET 1 days ago [-]
the biggest challenge would likely be training pilots to a new cockpit and flight profile
zdc1 1 days ago [-]
I wonder if it makes more sense to just get the latest batch of people doing the military -> civilian transition and starting them off on these
EGreg 1 days ago [-]
No passenger windows is the correct way to go. The screens can actually show anything, not just replace a window.
Bolwin 1 days ago [-]
Jeez way to ruin of the few remaining joys of flying. Lock everyone in a tin can. You will experience reality through screens only and you will enjoy it
EGreg 1 days ago [-]
Yes, you will! :-)
rezokun 1 days ago [-]
Infinite ads in econom
koiueo 1 days ago [-]
With 60hz pwm.
And you can't turn it off
Ah... A dream
blowsand 1 days ago [-]
Scott Kirby has joined the chat
BobbyTables2 1 days ago [-]
True - unlike a car, it’s not like one could open a window in a plane.
Just hope they don’t make an “ad-free” window a premium upgrade…
CalRobert 1 days ago [-]
Hell why even travel when you can just see Venice on a screen.
EGreg 19 hours ago [-]
This question is deeper than you think. Until the 20th century, most people didn't travel even a fraction of that many miles per year. The most prolific travelers, such as Mozart, did not travel nearly as much as a person who's commuting to work every day by car or train -- just to sit in a chair in the office instead of at home. When it comes to transportation, we burn fossil fuels and pollute the planet with CO2 for mostly needless reasons.
Our generation thinks we're so much "smarter", but we're living on an ecological credit card that our children will have to pay, not to mention many of the planet's ecosystems, just so we can all have "memories of actually being in Venice" rather than simply a picture of us in Venice, which in the end is the artifact we have. (If we are that insistent on "being everywhere" and checking off a bucket list, perhaps "Total Recall" was onto something LMAO.)
CalRobert 19 hours ago [-]
You’re not wrong. Having traveled a fair bit it does eventually turn in to basically a big theme park experience. I still like looking out the window though
calmbonsai 1 days ago [-]
Not this again. They’ve clearly hired a new PR firm
Suffice it to say, from stable aeronautics at-edge, jet way footprint efficiency, ground support efficiency, airframe pressurization, cargo & passenger logistics, lifespan, and certification, there are many, many reasons “tube + wings” is the dominant airframe architecture for all non-military aircraft.
Petersipoi 1 days ago [-]
There are many reasons for a lot of things, until you overcome those reasons. That's the point of innovation. There are many reasons not to make a reusable rocket too.
calmbonsai 1 days ago [-]
Yes, but this "innovation" (as sold) must exist as a viable commercial airplane.
So far, I see zero evidence that this company has addressed any of the aforementioned challenges beyond theoretical fuel consumption and theoretical passenger logistics.
As someone who has 31 hours towards their single-engine ppl cert, I absolutely abhor the stagnation of general and commercial aviation due, largely, to certification barriers, BUT even having a viable flight-worthy blended-wing concept does not make for a viable mass market product.
Not related, see the near half-century of "alternative" wing and airframe designs that are absolutely better at a few pieces of the puzzle, but also absolutely failed to be viable when integrated into a fully functional and safe airplane.
This company needs to focus on success in a niche product role before addressing the safety, integration, and manufacturing needs of the mass commercial aviation market. They are not (atm) backed by this sort of "patient capital".
Not related, see all of the VC and failures required by Whittle (in wartime no less) to develop the jet engine or Tesla's corporate journey from Roadster -> S -> Y.
jtrip 18 hours ago [-]
Once they have enough airframes flying with the military, the logistics side of the equation should solve itself in quick time.
stickfigure 1 days ago [-]
> As someone who has 31 hours towards their single-engine ppl cert,
FFS, have some self-awareness! This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect in practice.
hahahaa 1 days ago [-]
No because they used that point to say they have sympathy for the idea of innovating aircraft.
They are not saying "hold my beer while I put the industry to rights!"
calmbonsai 1 days ago [-]
I don't see how having a marginal amount of single-engine aviation flight experience is relevant to Dunning-Kruger.
If anything, it's taught me how little I know about "real flying" compared to CFD and systems engineering.
Commercial aviation is conservative because aviation is "hard" and mistakes in aviation are "extremely costly".
carabiner 24 hours ago [-]
It's a lot like saying, "as someone 5 hours into driver's ed in my mom's honda civic, I believe that future stability control algorithms in self-driving cars..."
Or the difference between a (noob) software user and a software engineer.
calmbonsai 2 hours ago [-]
No. I'm, in essence, saying the opposite. To use your analogy "as someone with 5 hours into driver's ed in my mom's civic I now realize how hard driving actually is and why ALL cars still have 4 wheels, still use a steering wheel, and still have seat-belts".
kelnos 15 hours ago [-]
No, it's not. They're saying "as someone with a small amount of insider experience, even I can see how everything is super conservative and no one wants to innovate".
trueno 1 days ago [-]
theres just some serious serious challenges here i dont think any of them are impossible to overcome but it would span so many more years and so much more funding to get thru. fuselage pressurization which they claim to have worked around (sus) is one of the spookiest imo.
traditional looking commercial jets, their designs, their manufacturing processes, their innovations (yes boeing/airbus do innovate and have for a long time even though it doesnt seem that way) have all been shaped heavily by human blood. to some degree a radical new design almost guarantees more deaths at a commercial level there's really no shortcutting this without it.
dont get me wrong im super open to the possibility that something like this is possible itd be better for the whole world, but there's no way we get there without re-experiencing some hard lessons if we want to push it pash some sort of proverbial finish line
ryanjshaw 1 days ago [-]
> have all been shaped heavily by human blood
This assumes the lessons were specific to the body type and aren’t generalizable?
imoverclocked 1 days ago [-]
Even small changes to time tested designs provide significant risk. A completely new body style will inevitably provide completely new failure modes.
Pressurizing a tube vs pressurizing a pancake (or flattened sphere, or some other easy approximation) will have very different mechanical loading characteristics. Turbulence (differences in air speed/pressure) across a large flat-ish surface that also has a signifiant pressure differential will also prove challenging to design for and scale up.
Aerospace is a very high dimensional design process. Doing anything different puts you into unknown territory real fast.
margalabargala 1 days ago [-]
If some letters were capitalized it would be easier to read but without this gets downvoted as wordsalad. Almost illegible. Punctuation exists for a reason.
trueno 23 hours ago [-]
the misery it takes to make these types of comments lmao. behold lifes hidden fruits of simply scrolling past something that makes you irritable
margalabargala 21 hours ago [-]
Consider dropping spaces too. It'll make your comments even more Unique and Quirky! And it won't impact readability in a way you care about!
trueno 5 hours ago [-]
you ok man
margalabargala 3 hours ago [-]
Probably not. Is anyone?
Look at this world we live in. Billionaires are living it up and climate change is wrecking winter and here we are in the mud, someone like you can't even afford a simple shift key.
It's all so crushing.
trueno 3 hours ago [-]
wtf im being poor shamed for lack of caps by the rss feed bourgeois
nine_k 1 days ago [-]
Halving the fuel consumption may be worth the trouble with all above.
Novel things always look unviable. First cars, first planes, first EVs all looked like dubious gimmicks sorely lacking the required infrastructure.
jryle70 18 hours ago [-]
If not this again, what would be your ideas of the path forward for aviation?
All of the constraints you mentioned are the results of decades of optimization around the tube-shape aircraft design. Meaning the design has to be proven first. Infrastructure will adapt.
Also, I suspect the first application will be military, such as Next Generation Air-refueling System (NGAS):
Agreed. There are always large amounts of money being poured into aviation and most of what comes out is knowledge.
It's always exciting to see futuristic designs and bleeding edge tech but there are a lot of footnotes in aviation history filled with these.
I think electric aviation (in general aviation) is probably the best/real frontier to watch for innovation currently. Many advances in aviation come from much smaller operations doing something successfully.
shrubble 1 days ago [-]
An experimental/homebuilt of similar but not exactly the same design, the Dyke Delta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_Delta of which about 50 have been built, has its pilots reporting a comfortable ride.
echoangle 1 days ago [-]
It’s also much smaller. The main problem will be that the people sitting outside experience a lot of vertical motion when the aircraft rolls. That’s only a problem with the full scale design.
Please lookup the flight envelope, cruise fuel utilization, and stall characteristics of the Dyke Delta along with its cargo capacity.
Then you'll understand why so many Cessna 172s were built.
jtrip 18 hours ago [-]
It wasn't more fuel efficient than the standard plane? Was it because of the propeller up front?
calmbonsai 2 hours ago [-]
It was more fuel efficient only over a very narrow band of the entire flight envelope. Also, it suffered from snap-stalls and very poor stall recovery due to its delta wing.
This is, primarily, why you only see delta wings used in super-sonic aircraft where these limitations are more than made-up for its ability to go trans-sonic with (relative) thrust efficiency.
csmoak 1 days ago [-]
Interesting choice to build in Greensboro. That's also where Boom chose to build a factory and it looks massive as you leave the airport. The plan for this company's factory looks like it will be significantly larger.
jasongill 19 hours ago [-]
The reason that these companies are choosing Greensboro as a base is due to the fact that the GSO airport has a relatively-long 10,001-foot runway but comparatively little commercial air traffic. Additionally, the airport property is quite large compared to some "urban" airports, and is under a lot of active land development to make room for more manufacturing facilities.
The HondaJet HQ is here (and has been for some time), as well as a number of aircraft repair facilities inside the airport fence, and there are ~5mil people within a 90 minute drive of GSO, so it's becoming easier to source talent for aerospace as well.
Our long runways and the fact that we only have around ~7 flights arriving/departing per hour, and the proximity to Washington DC, is why GSO is used quite often for training operations for "Air Force One" - we see 28000 and 29000 do very low passes over our house around once a month as they do touch-and-go and go-around drills, so it's always funny to see the flurry of "did you guys see that?" posts on Nextdoor.
twoodfin 1 days ago [-]
JetZero’s Demonstrator is on track for first-flight in 2027. The Demonstrator is being built in partnership with Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman.
Scaled Composites? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time…
sixdimensional 1 days ago [-]
Wow, I blinked and it's been 20+ years since Spaceship One? Yikes, time really does fly.
Presumably we haven't heard as much after Northrop bought them?
I think it's awesome that Scaled Composites is involved... they really have such specialized knowledge of all kinds of aeronautical engineering.
ungreased0675 16 hours ago [-]
When looking at potentially revolutionary technology companies, I tend to evaluate more harshly than I would with normal companies.
Three things on the JetZero website trip my BS detector. First, it appears they’re developing their own avionics displays/interface? That’s a terrible idea, they need to be laser focused on one core task.
Second is this quote: “The Pathfinder team has built and flown five generations of scaled aircraft over 30 flights. The most recent flights validate both the configuration and control laws of our full-size Jet1 Demonstrator.“
Over 30 flights seems really low. They should be testing way more than that, no?
Third, I spy a full-scale interior mock-up. There isn’t even a working prototype, but they’re paying people to pick out carpet colors?
I really want this to succeed, but it doesn’t look like these are serious people.
Robdel12 1 days ago [-]
This reeks of Vern Raburn and Eclipse Aviation all over again, haha. That failed terribly. SV’s ego is pretty funny sometimes. Eclipse even tried to develop their own avionics.
wnc3141 1 days ago [-]
tell me more? I used to live in Albuquerque and always wondered what happened.
praveen9920 22 hours ago [-]
They should have started these as cargo planes. Less compliance issues and more flight times can make it more trustable.
giantfrog 1 days ago [-]
An airplane is not something I would personally want to beta test
DrewADesign 1 days ago [-]
The people they do that have a lot of experience and make a lot of money. Fortunately, most of the world doesn’t have the software business’ cavalier attitude about safety-related things being perfectly safe.
NetMageSCW 1 days ago [-]
Boeing comes to mind as a counter example.
dlcarrier 1 days ago [-]
A few of my Mom's uncles were test pilots. They're… an odd bunch.
blitzar 1 days ago [-]
Move fast and break things.
hahahaa 1 days ago [-]
Good job they have test pilots then.
deadbabe 1 days ago [-]
If they offer free flights to places people want to go they will not have any shortage of testers.
pixelesque 1 days ago [-]
Why has one of the images in the header carrousel got it featuring what looks like a refueling probe for refueling other aircraft sticking out the back? The other two don't.
It looks like they've taken this mostly from an older Boeing BWB design for future air-to-air refueling aircraft (although the wing shape is a bit different).
robin_reala 1 days ago [-]
I always liked TU Delft’s similar Flying V concept which had KLM and Airbus backing, but I’ve no idea if they have a route to production. https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ae/flying-v
syntaxing 1 days ago [-]
Fluid dynamics is my jam (most of my masters was studying it)! Even in the intro to fluid mechanics book, they spent a good half+ chapter why a flying wing is superior and how you can have it designed similar to movie theater seating. But my professor spent a class explaining why regulation will kill it even though the design is great.
devy 1 days ago [-]
So you think JetZero's blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft design will be killed by regulators? Why?
Btw, it will take hydrogen propulsion for their planes to be zero CO2 emission.
SubMachineGhost 1 days ago [-]
Can you share more on why regulations will kill it please?
ctippett 17 hours ago [-]
The regulations currently require all passenger aircraft to be able to maintain positive static stability, which is inherently at odds with the aerodynamics of an all-wing design. As technology and test-flights demonstrate that these designs are actually feasible (and safe), I expect the regulations will eventually be updated.
calmbonsai 1 days ago [-]
Aside from regulation, the edge-envelope characteristics of a flying wing mandate fly-by-wire and, essentially, full-time autopilot.
Even then, good luck recovering when you, even marginally, exceed the energy*altitude parameters during take-off/landing during high wind shear.
Even B2s, with all of their on-board systems, have highly restrictive TOGA envelopes.
rswail 1 days ago [-]
Maybe start with freight aircraft which are less subject to the standard airport gate configuration restrictions?
Avoids the issues about people sitting in the wing area and "enjoying" the roller coaster effect when the plane rolls or yaws?
JumpCrisscross 1 days ago [-]
What is their engine? An airframe without an engine is, best case, a drone programme.
phonon 22 hours ago [-]
Pratt & Whitney PW2040 turbofan engine, same as the Boeing 757 and the C-17. They say that the plane itself is so efficient they don't need a cutting edge efficient engine.
hahahaa 1 days ago [-]
A glider?
a34729t 1 days ago [-]
et tu Boom?
Stevvo 1 days ago [-]
Hard to imagine it as a passenger aircraft any time soon, but if they manage to get the demonstrator built it looks like it could make a useful aerial refueling tanker.
mmooss 5 hours ago [-]
> The Pathfinder team has built and flown five generations of scaled aircraft over 30 flights.
Why so few? I'd expect them to be flying daily or as often as possible, to gather as much data as possible. The next step is a full-scale demonstrator. No doubt they have their reasons, but I wonder what they are?
shinycode 1 days ago [-]
Could these flights prove to people that with their own eyes they can see the earth is not flat ?
cassepipe 21 hours ago [-]
I love how the last image of the landing page is a model of the most efficient plane ever designed on a pole attached to what may be the least efficient vehicle ever made, the infamous US tax-loophole-pick-up truck
mlrtime 21 hours ago [-]
You mean the infamous best selling truck of all time globally? The vehicle that actual working people use everyday? Just because you see a few people use them not for work doesn't really mean anything.
cassepipe 18 hours ago [-]
And your point is... ?
Just because some people go to work in inefficient and dangerous-to-others cars does not make them more efficient. I am working a construction job, does this mean I should not think about what I am doing ?
FrustratedMonky 21 hours ago [-]
I'm interested in what you are referring to. Do you have link to this truck, the story..
Will this fit the dimensions of a typically airport gate and spacing?
decimalenough 23 hours ago [-]
No, but that's really the least of the problems in getting this thing into commercial flight.
natas 14 hours ago [-]
Flying OceanGate.
jmward01 1 days ago [-]
I wish them all the luck in the world. Aviation is in a massive rut and needs bold new designs and innovation. That being said, what makes this company different from the others that have come before? What makes their path to success more likely? The problem is likely less the technology and more the decade(s?) of burning money with no ability to sell anything because you have to certify everything. That cliff is so bad we got the 737 max instead of a real new design. In an industry where new tech should be bringing us new commercial designs yearly we are instead getting very minor iterations because even the massive players out there can't afford to bring a 'new' design to the table. I -really- want to see this succeed. Good luck.
eightysixfour 1 days ago [-]
> Aviation is in a massive rut and needs bold new designs and innovation.
Why does it need bold new design and innovation? More people (can afford to) fly every year, more safely, and with broadly more consistency than they ever have. The success of the commercial aviation industry as a whole is breathtaking.
jmward01 15 hours ago [-]
The 737 max is a great example of the rut we are in. In order to put more efficient engines on they needed more ground clearance. This has been the issue with 737 forever and why they have that odd flat scoop on the bottom of the engines. That isn't great for efficiency. It is because they can't redesign the wing without years long recertification. So, yet again, instead of redesigning the airframe to optimally place the engines they pushed them forward impacting the cg of the aircraft and requiring them to hack systems into the aircraft that countered for the reduced forward cg. Then, because they again didn't want to go through the recertification nightmare, they claimed no new training on the aircraft was needed. This led to pilots not knowing how to handle when the systems added failed. The root cause of the hacky design and missing training was avoiding a years long certification process that would have made it cost prohibitive to create an aircraft with more efficient engines. This is a minor change compared to building in really innovative new features.
To your argument of (paraphrase here) 'it is good enough why innovate'. I flat out reject that argument. Horse and buggy were good enough. The telegraph was good enough. We only needed 1 mb of memory because it was good enough. We are missing so much right now. We potentially could have small, efficient, point to point air taxi service for the average person, completely dismantling the massive, and horrible to deal with for people, hub and spoke system. Travel could get so much better and cheaper, but instead we have the 737 max. An incremental change on a decades old design because real innovation is lacking in the industry.
eightysixfour 10 hours ago [-]
> To your argument of (paraphrase here) 'it is good enough why innovate'.
That's not my argument, you are putting words in my mouth. My argument is "you better have a good reason to argue the commercial air industry is stagnant because the industry's incremental progress over time has been incredible." Look at this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
That's crazy!
The issue with your 737 MAX story is the trade-offs they made - oversized engine without massive recertification or requiring airport retrofits - worked. It is an absurdly successful product despite the early engineering failures. It is the best selling Boeing aircraft of all time and the second best selling commercial airline of all time (to the a320).
Innovation for the sake of innovation isn't worth anything, the current commercial airline stack is deeply optimized and delivers low cost, safe travel to hundreds of millions of people globally. What, exactly, would you like to see innovation on? What trade-offs are you willing to make?
I spent a few years in the commercial airline industry. They have a ton of problems, very few of them would be solved with a revolutionary plane design.
croemer 1 days ago [-]
More like JetHalfAtBest than JetZero.
TEHERET 1 days ago [-]
isn't this just the boeing flying wing
mrandish 1 days ago [-]
Looks a bit like Thunderbird 2. I approve.
anonymous344 20 hours ago [-]
how much the oil industry will loose if all aitcrafts in the world would tomorrow consume 50% less fuel?
yes, they would loose so much that few lives arent as valuable..
7e 19 hours ago [-]
Fantastic. What Boom should have been, if they had any vision.
jdw64 1 days ago [-]
The Shape is really cool.
fnord77 1 days ago [-]
While Boeing is too lazy to clean-sheet anything new
ares623 1 days ago [-]
the cybertrucks of airplanes
blitzar 1 days ago [-]
the OceanGate Titan of airplanes
1 days ago [-]
freecook 1 days ago [-]
I love it
rgmerk 1 days ago [-]
I wish them well but a startup building an airliner seems like an utterly impossible task.
usef- 1 days ago [-]
On the plus side, the competition seems a bit lousy lately
dlcarrier 1 days ago [-]
From an engineering perspective, it's a solved task. Designing an airplane is on par with designing a suspension bridge.
From a regulatory perspective, the layers of bureaucracy needed to get approval to build a bridge has nothing on starting up an airline manufacturing company. Once you have a company with a history of approval, you can practically do what you want, but getting to that point is nearly impossible.
divyekapoor 1 days ago [-]
If the numbers are what they claim. They’re going to make it.
DrewADesign 1 days ago [-]
Eh, if SpaceX did rockets… I wouldn’t be surprised if they could be very nimble compared to the big ones.
rgmerk 1 days ago [-]
The difference is that there establishment space launch companies were basically monopolies using ancient technology and processes. That’s not true for commercial aviation, which is subject to pretty relentless cost pressures.
DrewADesign 1 days ago [-]
Seems like that’s what a lot of people say about a lot of legacy businesses though when facing pressure from a startup. Obviously doesn’t always work, but sometimes!
a34729t 1 days ago [-]
Bullshit i cant hear you. Commcercial airliners are sold at a loss and are basically giant jobs programs. Modern jetliners are enormously efficient already; there has been a continuous race over the last century to this end.
scottmcdot 1 days ago [-]
Another pointless "up to x% better" specification.
johnwheeler 1 days ago [-]
looks expensive
glitchc 21 hours ago [-]
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freecook 1 days ago [-]
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luciana1u 1 days ago [-]
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chasing 1 days ago [-]
Feels like no windows is almost a deal-breaker? No? Do humans handle small enclosed spaces with no way to look outside well? The mock-up image looks like a small two-or-three seat compartment, which seems like it would be awful. Maybe an open space would be less claustrophobic, but still. Imagining just a normal jetliner today with no windows feels... not great. And I'm not sure having a giant flat screen wrapped around me would solve the problem.
SilverSlash 1 days ago [-]
I don't mind no windows at all if they have "digital windows" as substitutes. You're already 40,000ft in the air I think windows aren't really gonna help your claustrophobia. Not like you can open the door and walk out for a bit.
userbinator 1 days ago [-]
I get motion sickness when sitting sideways or backwards on a car. People tend to become nauseous when they sense motion but don't see it, or what they see doesn't align with their other senses. Even the small amount of lag that a "digital window" would likely have, will make things much worse.
chasing 1 days ago [-]
Maybe. I think people could survive it, sure. But I also wonder if there's a part of our lizard brain that just for safety's sake prefers to be able to see out of any small enclosed space we might find ourselves in. And that lizard brain is smart enough to know that a flat screen is fake. Again, I just think of flying in a plane today but with no windows and I, at least, am immediately squigged out.
I also feel like a lot of modern air travel is designed around making something that's highly unnatural and inherently terrifying into something palatable for most people. I'm not talking about actual safety, but the perception of safety. Which isn't exactly a logic thing. More about keeping that lizard brain from freaking out too hard.
SilverSlash 1 days ago [-]
Yes it's interesting and I'm by no means certain how I will feel inside one either. But people are also highly adaptable so we'll see how it goes.
Actually no windows doesn't even pass Passenger Flight rules and regulations. In Asia, its mandatory that windows should be opened, visible during takeoff and landing.
echoangle 1 days ago [-]
Doesn’t that technically only mean that all windows that exist need to be open, and having no windows at all would satisfy the requirement “all windows are open”? Or is the second sentence an addition to the first?
> JetZero, co-founded in 2020 by start-up veteran Tom O’Leary and aerospace legend Mark Page, is developing the world’s first commercial all-wing airplane. With up to 50% better fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions compared to existing commercial airliners, JetZero's Z4 will offer the aviation industry a clear path to achieving its 2050 net-zero goals while also elevating the passenger experience. Working alongside the US Air Force, NASA, and the FAA, and backed by decades of investment and research into blended wing technology. JetZero looks to enter commercial service in the early 2030s.
Where an "all-wing" airplane is, kudos to Gemini,
> one that merges the main body and wings into a single lifting surface. This can reduce drag, lower fuel burn, and expand interior space.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing_body)
(And actually, now I've just noticed they do use the term further down in the body of the text).
You’re telling me that just recently a random startup thought they’d work on it? It’s not exactly startup territory…
For an all-wing design to work the onboard flight control system needs to make thousands of microscopic surface adjustments every second to keep the flight stable. This is much more practical with today's computing power and technology, even if the concept may have been thought of long ago.
Mentour Now! has a great video discussing the aerodynamics of the B-2 which has a lot of relevancy to the JetZero design. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLtzjP1_3nQ
No windows
Evacuation issues
Won't work in some airports
Nausea inducing
... It's not without issues.
But freighters generally have lower utilization on less price-sensitive routes, so operators tend not to care so much about fuel economy (and for related reasons, usually aren't new aircraft). So however much easier the route to certification might be, it's a horrible market...
just ditch the plane. That will be so much money you can invest in net-positive technologies.
Also I believe the further away you are from the rotation axis of the plane where it turns left or right, the more unpleasant your flight may be
They appear to make more sense for large passenger jets because the interior volume scales better. There’s a ton of practical concerns though.
They won’t fit into existing airport setups. Seats near the wing will move waaay more than near the center during banking turns (maybe they’ll be cheaper lol)
I don’t think it’s a given they’ll replace what we’ve got, but who knows.
And another company working in the same space, Natilus, is planning to fit 150-250 passengers on theirs, somewhat comparable capacity-wise to a 757, but about 30% smaller length/width.
Bad news: this generally wasn't counted before and when counted roughly doubles the impact so in some senses you're back to where you started.
But it's a much lower hanging fruit than anything else and as yet we're not doing it.
As a simple matter, it keeps my city clean - we all put garbage in the bins (yes there's a law, but no way could it be enforced if the great majority of people didn't do it already). More dramatically and recently, the protests in India.
> society
Society is us - you, me, everyone. Nobody else is coming to help us.
I'm responsible for what I do, for the consequences of my actions. It's embarassing to say it's someone else's job (especially when the someone else is 'society'), and therefore I'm not going to do anything.
In the UK there is air passenger duty which is for example £102 per passenger on economy seats to the US. I think they are reluctant to raise it too much incase business shifts elsewhere.
I'm seeing it from both sides of the isles that people are being fed up with the overlords.
But currently the zillionaire tantrums control the future so you're right.
Zoom beats Boom.
Since the global South will suffer the most from climate change, they might disagree with developed nations ‘subsiding’ flights.
Did Berlin to Nessau through small routes: wonderful. Berlin to Prague? Stellar, if long. Berlin to Munich? Amazing all 4-5 times, unless they forget to stock up on soft pretzels.
The addicts cannot? Or who cannot? Anyone with money cannot?
Homo fricking economicus for you alright.
I know that the crew uses the typical seating time to refuel and load luggage in the underbelly, but one can dream of not having to wait to get off the airplane.
Then there are the Imperial slaves which are considered cargo and not passengers, but it's a different story...
There's Airbus's US patent US9193460B2 if you fancy a comedy read!
This sounds fixable in avionics and training. (Shallow, gradual banks.)
Note, too, that a larger lifting body needs to bank less to execute the same turn as a craft with more loading.
This is not really helpful for passenger comfort. For a turn to be comfortable, you want the turn to be such that the effective force the passengers feel has no sideways (relative to the passengers) component, and the required roll angle is only a function of the velocity and turning radius. The aircraft design is irrelevant.
The Wikipedia article is mediocre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_flight
My response is (a) this can be controlled in avionics and training, i.e. don’t do that, and (b) now that I think about it, vertical Gs aren’t as sickening as lateral ones.
Specify a maximum roll rate in training and normal-law software and this problem is solved
I’m wondering whether there are major airfields with traffic patterns that require roll rates that would exceed whatever maximum is desired for comfort. My intuition is that the situation would be tolerable at most airfields but that normal-law limits that are too restrictive could be dangerous.
One, this is where the more lifting body turning faster with less roll kicks in. Two, I suspect those airfields would also be the last ones to add terminals that can dock with a non-standard plane.
Can you explain what you mean? If an aircraft follows a given trajectory (center of mass position as a function of time x(t) where x is a 3D position), then it has an acceleration a(t) that is just the second derivative of x(t) and has nothing to do with the shape of the airframe.
Now account for gravity and kinematics: the force per unit mass that must be applied to the airframe is F/m = a + g • ẑ (ẑ is the upward unit vector).
The exact same result applies to a person inside the aircraft. If you want comfortable flight you need F/m to have no sideways component from the perspective of the passenger (and in the absence of gimballed seats the passenger is facing the same way as the airframe).
So far none of this has anything to do with the shape of the lifting body. And I’m wondering why you think more lifting body makes much difference. There are only two real flight parameters knobs you can turn to achieve this condition. You can roll, and you can sideslip. And, unless my intuition about the geometry is quite wrong, you would need a very extreme sideslip angle (pointing the nose quite close to the center of curvature) to have much effect on the required roll angle. So the roll angle needed is mostly a function of the angle of the acceleration vector plus gravity relative to the velocity and not much of a function of how the airframe is able to generate lift.
For another way to think of it, imagine a fancy rocket performing the exact same maneuver with no lift or drag whatsoever. Either the rocket could point itself toward the center of curvature (adjusted for gravity as above) and use its main engines to generate the required acceleration (extreme sideslip), or it could point roughly the same direction as its velocity vector and use a sideways-firing rocket to generate the required acceleration. If the latter, then, for passenger comfort, the roll angle needs to be such that the sideways rocket is in the front/back/up/down plane with respect to the passengers, which determines the required roll angle.
And I don’t see how any of this has anything to do with the same of a lifting body or the actual capabilities of the maneuvering thrusters of a hypothetical rocket. On a given flight path, you have a constrained set of valid roll, pitch, and yaw angles.
A few years ago, I would your use of diaeresis an admirable quirk. But now, especially given the em-dashes, I'm wondering if you're an LLM overtrained on the New Yorker.
(Myself, I've been doing em-dashes since about 2012, I think I found out by accident that you got them on MacOS from option-shift-minus after finding out by accident you could get en-dash from option-minus)
An airliner entering a 30 degree roll over 3 seconds would have passengers pop up or down 25 feet, with at least +0.3 and -0.3G of acceleration. It would come with a "going over the top of the roller coaster" feeling. This is in addition to the roll / rotation.
Yaw is interesting for similar reasons.
Picking out my house, seeing tiny cars on a remote highway, etc. Even 100+ MP cameras and high resolution screens won't come close to that level of detail.
And that's before we talk about night flights when there's nothing to see, flights over water when there's nothing to see and so on.
So yes, I'm sure some people like windows. But the majority have demonstrated that they're just fine flying without them.
I also was on a flight once that had a very bouncy landing with all the windows down - when I didn't realize we were anywhere near the ground yet. I'm not into tuning out reality to that degree, and don't really feel obligated to help anyone else do so either ;)
I was sitting next to a passenger once who was asked by the steward to raise the window shade.
While doing it, they asked "why". Answering for the steward I said "it's so Fire and Rescue can see into the plane if we crash". (Which is true, I used to work at airport fire and rescue.)
The steward looked at me with a "that's not helpful" look. My bad :( .
Although I think it's still useful for people to understand things are done for their safety. Not that we expect to crash, and most don't, but every little thing that might improve survival is done. That encourages rather than discourages me.
I get that they don't want people to panic, but I think an attitude of coddling people like that isn't productive.
But obviously you can open it to look, and there's only a small number that would apply to.
So it's a factor, but the primary reason is being able to look in.
And I was rather miffed about missing out on the view outside, because as a technical guy, I totally enjoy seeing all the activity at an airport! Half the fun of flying!
Takeoffs and landings are the biggest risk times (and also the best proximity to Fire and Rescue). In hot environments reducing heat load in the plane can definitely improve comfort. Bummer about missing the action though...
Where that number comes from: they claim 50% reduction in fuel consumption, which sounds doubtful to me, and fuel is about a third of flight costs, and I’m making some generous assumptions around perfect competition.
Thing is with current structure airlines would dilute business class too much and airplane manufacturers would increase density all while decreasing fuel use per passenger - none of which is desirable.
Interior isle seats cost as much as window seats in airlines that charge for position. People just want space.
Edit: apparently 12.5% of the population has claustrophobia. If 5% of flyers choose a different airline due to simulated windows that would wipe out any cost benefit from fuel savings.
Ah... A dream
Just hope they don’t make an “ad-free” window a premium upgrade…
Our generation thinks we're so much "smarter", but we're living on an ecological credit card that our children will have to pay, not to mention many of the planet's ecosystems, just so we can all have "memories of actually being in Venice" rather than simply a picture of us in Venice, which in the end is the artifact we have. (If we are that insistent on "being everywhere" and checking off a bucket list, perhaps "Total Recall" was onto something LMAO.)
Suffice it to say, from stable aeronautics at-edge, jet way footprint efficiency, ground support efficiency, airframe pressurization, cargo & passenger logistics, lifespan, and certification, there are many, many reasons “tube + wings” is the dominant airframe architecture for all non-military aircraft.
So far, I see zero evidence that this company has addressed any of the aforementioned challenges beyond theoretical fuel consumption and theoretical passenger logistics.
As someone who has 31 hours towards their single-engine ppl cert, I absolutely abhor the stagnation of general and commercial aviation due, largely, to certification barriers, BUT even having a viable flight-worthy blended-wing concept does not make for a viable mass market product.
Not related, see the near half-century of "alternative" wing and airframe designs that are absolutely better at a few pieces of the puzzle, but also absolutely failed to be viable when integrated into a fully functional and safe airplane.
This company needs to focus on success in a niche product role before addressing the safety, integration, and manufacturing needs of the mass commercial aviation market. They are not (atm) backed by this sort of "patient capital".
Not related, see all of the VC and failures required by Whittle (in wartime no less) to develop the jet engine or Tesla's corporate journey from Roadster -> S -> Y.
FFS, have some self-awareness! This is the Dunning-Kruger Effect in practice.
They are not saying "hold my beer while I put the industry to rights!"
If anything, it's taught me how little I know about "real flying" compared to CFD and systems engineering.
Commercial aviation is conservative because aviation is "hard" and mistakes in aviation are "extremely costly".
Or the difference between a (noob) software user and a software engineer.
traditional looking commercial jets, their designs, their manufacturing processes, their innovations (yes boeing/airbus do innovate and have for a long time even though it doesnt seem that way) have all been shaped heavily by human blood. to some degree a radical new design almost guarantees more deaths at a commercial level there's really no shortcutting this without it.
dont get me wrong im super open to the possibility that something like this is possible itd be better for the whole world, but there's no way we get there without re-experiencing some hard lessons if we want to push it pash some sort of proverbial finish line
This assumes the lessons were specific to the body type and aren’t generalizable?
Pressurizing a tube vs pressurizing a pancake (or flattened sphere, or some other easy approximation) will have very different mechanical loading characteristics. Turbulence (differences in air speed/pressure) across a large flat-ish surface that also has a signifiant pressure differential will also prove challenging to design for and scale up.
Aerospace is a very high dimensional design process. Doing anything different puts you into unknown territory real fast.
Look at this world we live in. Billionaires are living it up and climate change is wrecking winter and here we are in the mud, someone like you can't even afford a simple shift key.
It's all so crushing.
Novel things always look unviable. First cars, first planes, first EVs all looked like dubious gimmicks sorely lacking the required infrastructure.
All of the constraints you mentioned are the results of decades of optimization around the tube-shape aircraft design. Meaning the design has to be proven first. Infrastructure will adapt.
Also, I suspect the first application will be military, such as Next Generation Air-refueling System (NGAS):
https://www.twz.com/air-force-says-it-needs-more-survivable-...
It's always exciting to see futuristic designs and bleeding edge tech but there are a lot of footnotes in aviation history filled with these.
I think electric aviation (in general aviation) is probably the best/real frontier to watch for innovation currently. Many advances in aviation come from much smaller operations doing something successfully.
Then you'll understand why so many Cessna 172s were built.
This is, primarily, why you only see delta wings used in super-sonic aircraft where these limitations are more than made-up for its ability to go trans-sonic with (relative) thrust efficiency.
The HondaJet HQ is here (and has been for some time), as well as a number of aircraft repair facilities inside the airport fence, and there are ~5mil people within a 90 minute drive of GSO, so it's becoming easier to source talent for aerospace as well.
Our long runways and the fact that we only have around ~7 flights arriving/departing per hour, and the proximity to Washington DC, is why GSO is used quite often for training operations for "Air Force One" - we see 28000 and 29000 do very low passes over our house around once a month as they do touch-and-go and go-around drills, so it's always funny to see the flurry of "did you guys see that?" posts on Nextdoor.
Scaled Composites? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time…
Presumably we haven't heard as much after Northrop bought them?
I think it's awesome that Scaled Composites is involved... they really have such specialized knowledge of all kinds of aeronautical engineering.
Three things on the JetZero website trip my BS detector. First, it appears they’re developing their own avionics displays/interface? That’s a terrible idea, they need to be laser focused on one core task.
Second is this quote: “The Pathfinder team has built and flown five generations of scaled aircraft over 30 flights. The most recent flights validate both the configuration and control laws of our full-size Jet1 Demonstrator.“
Over 30 flights seems really low. They should be testing way more than that, no?
Third, I spy a full-scale interior mock-up. There isn’t even a working prototype, but they’re paying people to pick out carpet colors?
I really want this to succeed, but it doesn’t look like these are serious people.
It looks like they've taken this mostly from an older Boeing BWB design for future air-to-air refueling aircraft (although the wing shape is a bit different).
Btw, it will take hydrogen propulsion for their planes to be zero CO2 emission.
Even then, good luck recovering when you, even marginally, exceed the energy*altitude parameters during take-off/landing during high wind shear.
Even B2s, with all of their on-board systems, have highly restrictive TOGA envelopes.
Avoids the issues about people sitting in the wing area and "enjoying" the roller coaster effect when the plane rolls or yaws?
https://www.jetzero.aero/progress
Why so few? I'd expect them to be flying daily or as often as possible, to gather as much data as possible. The next step is a full-scale demonstrator. No doubt they have their reasons, but I wonder what they are?
Just because some people go to work in inefficient and dangerous-to-others cars does not make them more efficient. I am working a construction job, does this mean I should not think about what I am doing ?
Why does it need bold new design and innovation? More people (can afford to) fly every year, more safely, and with broadly more consistency than they ever have. The success of the commercial aviation industry as a whole is breathtaking.
To your argument of (paraphrase here) 'it is good enough why innovate'. I flat out reject that argument. Horse and buggy were good enough. The telegraph was good enough. We only needed 1 mb of memory because it was good enough. We are missing so much right now. We potentially could have small, efficient, point to point air taxi service for the average person, completely dismantling the massive, and horrible to deal with for people, hub and spoke system. Travel could get so much better and cheaper, but instead we have the 737 max. An incremental change on a decades old design because real innovation is lacking in the industry.
That's not my argument, you are putting words in my mouth. My argument is "you better have a good reason to argue the commercial air industry is stagnant because the industry's incremental progress over time has been incredible." Look at this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft
That's crazy!
The issue with your 737 MAX story is the trade-offs they made - oversized engine without massive recertification or requiring airport retrofits - worked. It is an absurdly successful product despite the early engineering failures. It is the best selling Boeing aircraft of all time and the second best selling commercial airline of all time (to the a320).
Innovation for the sake of innovation isn't worth anything, the current commercial airline stack is deeply optimized and delivers low cost, safe travel to hundreds of millions of people globally. What, exactly, would you like to see innovation on? What trade-offs are you willing to make?
I spent a few years in the commercial airline industry. They have a ton of problems, very few of them would be solved with a revolutionary plane design.
yes, they would loose so much that few lives arent as valuable..
From a regulatory perspective, the layers of bureaucracy needed to get approval to build a bridge has nothing on starting up an airline manufacturing company. Once you have a company with a history of approval, you can practically do what you want, but getting to that point is nearly impossible.
I also feel like a lot of modern air travel is designed around making something that's highly unnatural and inherently terrifying into something palatable for most people. I'm not talking about actual safety, but the perception of safety. Which isn't exactly a logic thing. More about keeping that lizard brain from freaking out too hard.
Edit: also this older concept image shows windows: https://www.jetzero.aero/hs-fs/hubfs/JetZero-Z4-left.png?wid...