szbd
Junior Member
any link about the production plan notification? thanks
COMAC C919
- Thread starter Deino
- Start date
A good thread here, explains why everyone is rushing to BWB, however I still have my doubts , does the reduced fuel really pays off?
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Consider for a moment.
All modern airliners and buisness jets today are based on a evolution of 2 airliner configurations set in the mid 1950s. The Boeing 707 the basis of the majority of modern jets airliners. Sure they got smaller/larger and lost engines with ETOPS and materials have changed but overall they are the same configuration. Fuselage, swept wings under mounted engines crusiform tail.
name it Boeing, Airbus, Comac, Embraer, UAC they all follow the same design mold just changed this or that. Scale up or down.
Or the Sud Aviation Caravelle. They got bigger gained and lost engines got smaller but overall again fuselage swept wing nacelles flanking the tail high mounted T tail. Sure new materials new engines but ever notice how much most buisness jets look alike? Bombardier, Cessna, Dassault, Embraer, Gulfstream, Honda, Palatus…
The only exceptions like Antonov or BAE 146 are very specific and often built from military transports with STOL characteristics.
The tubular fuselage structure is wonderful for pressurization but it’s poor for fuel efficiency as it’s draggy. Engine technology has advanced but we are now seeing battles between makers over fractions of fuel efficiency vs rivals and the engines are getting bigger each improvement. As long as the engine is mounted under the wings you can only increase the diameter so much. mounting the engines on the flank of the fuselage has been done but it increases sound issues and blocks visibility well also generally not doing so well past a set size. And you still hit the draggy fuselage. So we hit an apex.
So options are being studied.
BWB are one of them. But as to your points. Let me counter point.
First Windows on airliners are living on borrowed time already. They are heavy and display technology is getting to the point where Airbus and a few makers of business aircraft are looking at replacing the glass with cameras and wrap around screens that would give views of the sky for much lighter weight.
as to the motion sickness. That is primarily going to boil down to where you are sitting and although I have seen the same 20 across seat maps I suspect that the Airlines if they did go for BWB would be using the side space for cargo and possibly more fuel. Especially if they choose to move to hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel doesn’t do wet wing tanks so having the space for large tanks would be advantageous.
I’m not a believer in cabin displays replacing windows. Nothing substitutes for natural lighting.
I'm sceptical. BWBs have had their own section in Anderson for years, yet the various announced concepts are either vapourware (recent Leeham article notes their model couldn't reproduce the claimed 50% weight savings of a Z5 over a conventional offering) or implemented at a UAV-sized scale
We need more representative demonstrators where the pax experience can be physically tested before anyone incorporates it into a commercial offering
We need more representative demonstrators where the pax experience can be physically tested before anyone incorporates it into a commercial offering
But can we please continue this BWB discussion in the Chinese aviation thread? It no really has a direct connection to the C919.
Maybe let's get this aircraft into more airlines and work on getting domestic engine and other components on there first, before talking about military variant? COMAC's goal is to become a legitimate civil aerospace company. Not a great thing to dive into military stuff this soon.