Boeing Blended Wing Transport

[retired guy]

Has anyone seen anything about a Boeing Blended Wing Design (797)? I have received several emails about a new Boeing design. The gist of the emails are this....Airbus has commited to an old tublar design (380) and Boeing has this new, super effecient design. I think it is probably total B.S. I checked on Snopes and can find nothing. Anyone?

 

[QuasarZ]

I heard about that too. I was reading through some posts at airliners.net. I am not sure if its true or not... i sure hope not.. a big pice of crap if you see it

 

[AdamKooper]

Washington post had an article a few days ago about it. It was just some concept sketches one of manye was the Blended wing. There were osme that had retractable wingtips and such. Nothing more than drawings.

 

[imacdog]

The BWB has been talked about before with direct references to Boeing. I'm sure they have a design team working on several concepts for new airliner technology. Who knows if they'll ever be produced, but I can certainly believe that they are toying with the design.

 

[Rogue5]

News Breaks
Americas
Boeing's Phantom Works
Aviation Week & Space Technology
05/08/2006, page 14

Boeing's Phantom Works has built two, 400-lb., high-resolution, 21-ft.- wingspan prototypes of the futuristic and tailless blended-wing body aircraft. The high-lift concept has been designated the X-48B and is being eyed as a long-range, high-capability military aircraft.

 

[CrimsonEclipse]

Think airborn refueling.

CE

 

[EagleRJ]

The BWB has been a Boeing concept for a few years now. It would be more efficient than the tube and wing design, but it has a few issues that would have to be dealt with for an airliner version (no windows, evacuation issues, pressurizing a non-round structure requires more strength/weight).

It might be undergoing more serious consideration for tanker or cargo transport use. There has been a lot of recent wind tunnel research done on the design- maybe they're looking at it for the upcoming KC-X program to replace the KC-135s and KC-10s.

 

[mzaharis]

Some of the airliners.net crowd have taken to referring to Boeing's BWB research (including wind tunnel tests and UAV test) as "797", but I haven't seen anyone actually provide any reliable reports that it has been assigned the number.

Here's an article with a photo. As mentioned earlier, it's being researched as a military project.

http://www.flightglobal.com/Articles/2006/05/09/206447/BWB+model+nears+end+of+windtunnel+test+phase+.html

I once read an article in Air International that indicated that a BWB needs to be statically unstable to actually be advantageous to a conventional layout; otherwise, trim drag cancels out any benefits. It's been a while, so my recollection may be a bit hazy.

 

[Metro752]

May 4th, Boeing release, http://www.boeing.com/phantom/news/2006/q2/060504b_nr.html

with picture of model

 

[WGP guy]

Sorry for bumping this thread, but I feel that it would be good to show a picture of what looks to be a production model. Posting this mainly because I want to know if you guys think this is real or not, to me it looks photochopped.

http://i.timeinc.net/popsci/flat_files/space/space1103seven_slideshow/slide01.jpg