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Bonkers tri-wing jumbo jet concept reduces fuel consumption by 70%
- p1mrx 5y agoWould this be the first vehicle that stores fuel above the passengers? That seems a bit unsettling.
- strangattractor 5y agoLooks to me like it has %50 less engines. That will save a lot of fuel but makes it useless for flights over water.
- sokoloff 5y agoThe article says "The tri-wing design, with a double tail fin and two engines mounted to the rear". Two-engine airliners are overwhelmingly the most common configuration today, including for ocean crossings. (I can't tell if you're arguing that 2 is 50% less than 4 and implying that 4 is the standard for water-crossing, or if you think it's a single-engine jet.)
- davewritescode 5y agoWe've been flying twin engine planes over oceans for quite a while now. That's been a think since Boeing and Airbus introduced the 787 and the E350 using something called an ETOPS certification. If anything, we'll probably be seeing a lot more twin engine flights over oceans in the future. https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a11987/for-transoceanic-flights-are-two-engines-enough-16991135/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a11987/for-transocea...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- acchow 5y agoLong before the 787, ETOPS allowed the 767 to cross the Atlantic in the 80s.
- mulmen 5y agoETOPS was created based on A300 experience in the late 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS#Early_ETOPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS#Early_ETOPS
- rmk 5y agoI believe ETOPS was developed to help make the 767 a viable twin-engine option for long flights over water (ETOPS-120). That subsequently led to ETOPS-180 etc. Now there's ETOPS-330! ETOPS-N: N number of minutes over open water, roughly, I think.
- PeterWhittaker 5y agoThe article states “engines” but it is hard to see where the second one might be. There are twin intakes on the body below the tail wings, but I don’t see a second exhaust….
- monocasa 5y agoIt looks like the second exhaust is along the central axis of the fuselage.
- compiler-guy 5y agoThe second engine's exahust is straight out the back of the tail.
- ghaff 5y agoI'd wonder how big an engine you can put back there. Designs like the 727 were before turbofans. I'm not aware of any turbofan designs with an engine built into the fuselage. (But that's a pretty fundamental question so I assume it's been looked at.)
- sokoloff 5y agoThe F-22 has fuselage-mounted turbofans (albeit ones with a lower bypass ratio than a typical modern airliner).
- johntb86 5y agoThe Lockheed L-1011 had an engine at the very rear of the fuselage, though bypass ratios were lower when it was built than today.
- ghaff 5y agoThat was my point though. It can be done but to achieve fuel savings, which is the objective, you probably need high bypass engines.
- 5y ago
- meepmorp 5y ago> Its projected range of 10,500 miles, with a top speed of Mach .90 (690.5 mph), is also greater than other jets in its class. Better range than a 787 or A350.
- gimmeThaBeet 5y agoI think the implication there is sort of operational, that flying in open water, when have an engine failure, flying with two engines likely presents more problems. Not really my discipline. I don't know how long a twin engine plane is expected to be able to fly on one engine, or under what sort of envelope.
- meepmorp 5y agoIt's also a twin engine aircraft.
- gimmeThaBeet 5y agoI assumed the implication of the OC was that 4 engines was the undisputed standard for long flights over open water, which would be kind of true until like, the early 80s.
- altcognito 5y agoI would be concerned about wind shear in takeoffs, but I know very little about planes.
- sokoloff 5y agoThis got some quick downvotes, but it's a reasonable concern. Anytime you reduce the takeoff and landing speed [in pursuit of being able to use shorter runways], you reduce the relative margin against unpredicted wind shear. A 20 knot loss of airspeed [windshear] is more "easily" ignored by an airplane with a rotation speed of 145 knots than one that rotates at 100 knots.
- gloryless 5y agoThis is cool, love to see interesting new designs. Wish the article head touched on feasibility since market economics decide the design of the final product as much as anything, but doesn't make this design any less cool.
- ta1234567890 5y ago> Whether both designs are flying in a decade or simply remain smart but fantastical concepts is anyone’s guess. So the 70% reduced fuel consumption has not been tested with a built plane on a real flight. Got it.
- avereveard 5y agoand the concept hasn't even been wind tunnel tested it seems.
- ddoolin 5y agoBut why is the gear gown?
- BitwiseFool 5y agoIf that's an official render then I'm completely dismissing these people.
- recursive 5y agoYup. "Courtesy SE Aeronautics" lol
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- antattack 5y agoIf fuel is stored along the fuselage, in a bladder, how do you keep it from sloshing between front and back? EDIT: Maybe toothpaste squeezer design could work.
- michaelbuckbee 5y agoNo idea how they intend to accomplish this on the plane, but in other similar situations the containers have baffles between sections to prevent sloshing: https://mk0saferacklivebim3l.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/tank-truck-surge-provention.jpg https://mk0saferacklivebim3l.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/upload...
- m4rtink 5y agoSimilar thing in many liquid fueled rockets - provided you don't want to end up as early Falcon 1 or Juno launches.
- tacostakohashi 5y agoProbably the same way that sloshing is prevented when a conventional aircraft banks - using the magic of baffles.
- antattack 5y agoArticle specifies a bladder - I don't see how you can have bladder and baffles. Also, baffles would make it difficult to source fuel to engines when ascending or descending.
- avereveard 5y agox) doubt at 0.9mach wing will be in the low pressure/high turbolence area of the wing ahead, especially with how low swept these are. at least the third one is off axes, but still. also, these are the same guy of the huge ass v shaped thing. how long has to pass before we can call them the theranos of aviation?
- ravenstine 5y agoIs this something we're actually going to see in reality? Call me a cynic, but I've seen innovative new designs for commercial planes since I was a kid, yet here we are nearly 25 years later flying planes that look like they're from the 1950s.
- drcoopster 5y agoThat's because lots of planes flying today are still from the 1950s.
- cryptoz 5y agoIs this true? Do you have a source? I have a hard time believing that lots of planes flying today are from the 1950s. That's 60-70 years ago. I did some searching but didn't find anything that would indicate there are any commercial aircraft that old still flying, much less lots - but if you have a source I'm curious about it. Thanks! Edit: A google image search for '1950s airplanes' shows me very weird-looking planes that don't much resemble what we have today, in my experience. I now disagree with OP too, I don't think there has been nearly as much stagnation in airplane design and flight over the last 70 years as is indicated in these comments.
- Leherenn 5y agoIt might be true for GA, there's a lot of stuff from the 60s still around, but not for commercial aircraft. The average fleet age in NA is 14 years old. [1] [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/751440/aviation-industry-aircraft-fleet-age-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/751440/aviation-industry...
- outworlder 5y agoCommercial aircraft? As in passenger airliners? Not many from 1950. But plenty in use for the past 2 decades. Average age in North America is 14 years https://www.statista.com/statistics/751440/aviation-industry-aircraft-fleet-age-by-region/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/751440/aviation-industry... https://thepointsguy.com/news/airlines-oldest-fleets/ https://thepointsguy.com/news/airlines-oldest-fleets/ There are _plenty_ being used as freighters. Take the DC-3. First flight in 1935. Produced until 1942 (1950 in the URSS). Still in operation. However, the 737 design is from 1968. Is that better? In general aviation, there are lots of planes flying from that time. In flight schools you'll see a bunch of Cessna 150s, first flight in 1957. Thousands of aircraft still operational from that era, even some from the WW2 era (Ercoupe) In the military, we have the B-52. From 1955. It was only produced from 1952 to 1962. Expected retirement is sometime in 2050, maybe later. That's a full century of service. Planes are expensive. They are expected to be in service for many decades. Maintenance keeps them working almost indefinitely (even more so if they are not pressurized). Airlines will only retire them when there are other, more economically viable, options(which sometimes includes new models of essentially the same airframe).
- redis_mlc 5y agoI study aerodynamics, so some comments: - vertically-stacked wings (biplanes, triplanes) are common, but I've never seen 3 non-stacked wings. Not even the Nazis were doing that, which is a red flag for this project actually. (I think it was France that passed a law that airplanes required at least 2 stacked wings around WW1, as monoplanes had too many structural failures at the time.) - more wings mean more lift, but also more drag - one advantage of more wings is that airports support only certain wing spans, so winglets or more wings is a work-around for that. (The result of winglets is mainly to effectively lengthen wing span.) - very thin wings aid in penetrating the sound barier. This is a subsonic plane in terms of speed, but more accurately it's a transsonic plane (mixed subsonic and supersonic) over certain parts. - I don't see the second engine, but if it has two, that's adequate for most oceanic operations because other small jets are allowed to do that, and ETOPS. (If ETOPS regulations apply, then engine reliability history is examined.) - If the engines are too close together, then an uncontained engine explosion can destroy the other. This is fairly common for engines mounted near each other.)
- chis 5y agoI thought the problem with multiple wings is that the first one pushes air downward (to induce lift), and then the proceeding wings get caught in the downdraft. Just looking up pictures of planes with multiple wings, it seems like it's common to put the first wing at the bottom of the fuselage and then the second wing at the top. The theory being that the second wing will be above the downdraft and able to provide lift. Anyways it looks like this company is generally considered to be a scam so I don't think this is much more than a 3D render.
- redis_mlc 5y ago> I thought the problem with multiple wings is that the first one pushes air downward (to induce lift), and then the proceeding wings get caught in the downdraft. Biplanes do increase lift, but there's always tradeoffs. The main problem with them is the struts add drag, as well as two wings above each other. Some biplanes stagger the top and window wing, like the Staggerwing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Model_17_Staggerwing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechcraft_Model_17_Staggerwin...
- guardiangod 5y ago>the fuel is stored on a bladder on top of the fuselage I'd feel uncomfortable knowing 200k liters of jet fuel are stored above me, no matter how many layers of (self healing) bladders are protecting it. Irrational, I know.
- slimsag 5y agoAll things considered, not _that_ irrational. For example the flight in Okinawa > The pilots attempted to use the cockpit escape rope to climb to the ground, but the first officer was knocked off the rope when the number 2 engine and right wing fuel tanks exploded, triggering a large fireball that consumed much of the fuselage. The captain subsequently leapt from the window without using the rope. Now, would I prefer to have the fuel above me or below me? Probably above. But in the wings away from the cabin does seem a bit safer. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_120 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_120
- EricE 5y agonot irrational at all! After reading about that I went from intrigued to NOPE!
- kingsuper20 5y agoCrazy looking. If they can actually drop fuel consumption by 70%, every passenger and cargo jet in the country will look like that in no time. I'll believe it when I see it, although sketchy drawings (as opposed to a prototype) always make me in favor of a thing. Seriously, as someone who is not an aerospace designer guy, I would have thought that the turbulence thrown off the front wing would cause problems for the back two (or at least cause them to look radically different). It's like the flying version of a Tyrrell P34.
- gopalv 5y ago> can actually drop fuel consumption by 70%, every passenger and cargo jet in the country will look like that in no time. That is true if it had an actual reduction in total fuel spend over the journey. This promises a ~70% reduction in rate, which is not the same thing as 70% reduction over distance, unless someone says at the same speed. For instance, the double-bubble Aurora D8 did get 70% more efficiency out of the aerodynamics but also by cutting the cruise speed from 0.8 mach to 0.72 to make the aero work. So more efficient per hour, but longer hours of flight which introduces additional spend. The SUGAR FREEZE did something similar with extra wings under the main wings like a bi-plane, but again with big savings at mach 0.7 and only 10% at mach 0.8. But of course, the real cost shift there was switching the fuel type to something that can be manufactured out of co2+h20 (like pure methane).
- gibolt 5y agoIf this or another design could actually reduce fuel requirements by that much, how much closer would we be to full-size battery-electric planes being viable? Current requirements are pegged at 400 Wh/kg, while current batteries are between 250-280. A major efficiency improvement should put us much closer.
- driverdan 5y agoThis is a render, not a prototype, and the article reads like a press release with the word "bonkers" thrown in a few times. Until they have a real working prototype this isn't that interesting. It seems like they're trying to drum up interest to get funding.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ChrisGranger 5y agoThis is the second time I've seen this design posted here, but as far as I can tell, SE Aeronautics is not a real aerospace company, and this jet is pure vaporware. The address on their website is a wedding venue at Mathews Manor. (Probably-not-coincidentally, Tyler Mathews is SE Aeronautics CEO.) Anyone can throw together a 3D rendering of a jet with extra wings and make all sorts of claims about its performance.
- phkahler 5y agoThese things often involve a number of newish technologies in the pitch. Using "next gen" engines from existing companies, going composite over more of the aircraft to save weight, using a new shape or in this case more wings. By the time you stack up the evolutionary stuff - which is going to happen anyway - the revolutionary part isn't that big a deal. And by the time they overcome the challenges of doing a real design, the industry has evolved and the revolutionary concept fades away.
- notahacker 5y agoCivil aircraft that actually get built tend to have as few newish technologies as possible, and nothing outlined in this proposal is evolutionary. More to the point, no evidence is presented of any credentials to do an actual design, and two years ago they were launching a revolutionary seat
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago>Anyone can throw together a 3D rendering of a jet with extra wings // Seems not as the first image either has the wings/wing tips on upside down or is missing the upward facing winglets. I've seen aircraft with upward, both down- and up-ward, but never just downward facing winglets. https://calaero.edu/guide-airplane-winglets/ https://calaero.edu/guide-airplane-winglets/ This sort of engine arrangement seems likely to suffer with centre of gravity problems? The side scoops feed the rear engine so the top engine could be occluded by the fuselage?
- caycep 5y agoMiyazaki came up with this design first...(Howl's Moving Castle)
- magila 5y agoCaproni did it first. Miyazaki even references it in The Wind Rises. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.60
- at_a_remove 5y agoWe're up to five blades on a razor now. We can at least do three set of wings on planes. Maybe four. Let's think outside of the box.
- citilife 5y agoI wish they'd instead phrase it as "Concept Tri-Wing Jumbo Jet Could Reduces Fuel Consumption by 70%" We don't actually know if the final build would even function. This is just a design discussion.
- Jabbles 5y agoLanding aircraft are spaced ~minutes apart to avoid turbulence caused by the plane in front. Surely wings immediately behind on another suffer significant turbulence and reduced lift?
- FredPret 5y agoLooks like a flying centipede!
- bch 5y agoThey should pull up their landing gear for additional savings
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoDoes anyone know what simulation software is used to test these models?
- notahacker 5y ago3D Studio Max, "OK Google, which font does Boeing use?",. and a pair of 8 sided dice. There's no evidence of an actual company with actual engineers working on this, and a fair few hints to the contrary if you look at their website.
- mustafa_pasi 5y agoI don't really care about this particular concept. I am interested in the software industry that provides modelling and simulation software for aerospace engineers, if there is even such a thing. I would love if people could provide some names.
- outworlder 5y ago70% fuel consumption reduction would be revolutionary. At 0.9 mach? Even more so. Highly unlikely to be real. If this concept had legs I would expect it to have been already gobbled up by one of the major aircraft manufacturers even while the company was in 'stealth mode'. Not only it's supposed to be 70% more efficient, but it is supposed to be easier to construct. On another article(https://paxex.aero/se-aeronautics-fever-dream/ https://paxex.aero/se-aeronautics-fever-dream/) they are saying they have a "new construction technique" that can build a whole airframe in a week. New, unproven construction technique could be revolutionary in itself - and an uphill certification battle. Oh and also the engines will be swappable in 30 minutes. And it's so efficient that even though it has two engines, only one will be in use at a time in cruise. So this means they will be close together. This is a safety concern. Its economy class will be more comfortable than today's economy class too (how can you claim that, that's entirely up to the airlines, unless they won't offer other seating arrangements) Lots of outlandish claims. Sure, the airline industry has only made very incremental developments over the past few decades and is overly conservative. Probably ripe for disruption. But to claim that you can suddenly leapfrog them on cost, efficiency, construction time and other verticals AT THE SAME TIME... sounds like snake oil to me.
- qeternity 5y agoTesla Air
- SaltyBackendGuy 5y ago> and an uphill certification battle. This really makes me wonder how much of the lack of innovation in recent years is regulatory capture. > If this concept had legs I would expect it to have been already gobbled up by one of the major aircraft manufacturers even while the company was in 'stealth mode'. The Fermi paradox[0] of innovation. Surly it's possible this is feasible but the incumbent powers are not incentivized to adopt for other reasons. > But to claim that you can suddenly leapfrog them on cost, efficiency, construction time and other verticals AT THE SAME TIME... sounds like snake oil to me. Totally. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. All that said I really hope we can innovate on this front. 70% fuel savings is an insane amount of pollution we can prevent, among other benefits. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
- manigandham 5y ago70% less fuel doesn't make sense. The energy required to lift and move a certain amount of weight is a known static quantity. The savings would have to be made up entirely in efficiency, and modern plane designs are very efficient. Reducing fuel usage to that extent based on wing and airframe shape alone seems rather ridiculous.
- fulafel 5y agoLifting and moving mass can take quite little energy compared to actual air travel energy consumption. Lifting 100 kg straight up by 1000 m at the lower bound of physics takes ~1 MJ. But real life air travel comes to 1+ MJ per just horizontal passenger-km.
- hatsunearu 5y agowhat a load of shit, blatant false marketing--the airflow flowing over that wing is going to disrupt the airflow flowing over the wing behind it.
- devy 5y agoThis is the original official PR Newswire article from March 17th, 2021. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/se-aeronautics-to-manufacture-greenest-widebody-aircraft-301249577.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/se-aeronautics-to-m...
- firebaze 5y agoThings your airline wouldn't want you to know. Also, your EV now charges in 5 seconds.
- GuB-42 5y agoI am not an aerodynamic engineer but I am an ultralight pilot and work for an aeronautic company, and for me, the design doesn't make much sense. First, having the fuel in the wings is the most obvious choice, it stabilizes the plane and reduces strain on the wing spar. It makes the choice of 3 short wings instead of a single, longer one, and yet, as seen on gliders, longer wings are generally more efficient. It is probably necessary in order to make them thin (which is good) and strong enough to support, among other things, the fuel that isn't in the wings. And having the wings one behind the other doesn't look great for aerodynamics, I can easily imagine the wingtip vortex of the front wing hitting the back wing on the way down. It looks like the kind of thing that can do well in a simulation with very well defined parameters but I don't expect it to pass the real world test (or even just a wind tunnel).
- stevehawk 5y agolonger wings are more efficient but generate drag, which makes them an enemy of any high cruise speed.
- GuB-42 5y agoYou are absolutely right. However the proposed plane has 3 wings, which, naively, would have the same drag as a wing 3 times longer. Non-naively, it goes beyond my knowledge of aerodynamics, but it is worth noting that multi-wing designs were very popular pre-WW2 but they are almost never seen today, which suggests a design compromise made obsolete by modern technologies.
- rsj_hn 5y agoMultiple wings were popular in the WW1 era and right up to WW2 because the engines were weak, meaning the plane flew slowly and thus needed a large surface area to generate lift. Lift ~ surface area of wing * velocity^2 https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/lifteq.html https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/lifteq.html At slow speeds, you need a lot of surface area. As speed increases, the required surface area decreases rapidly. Remember the first flight was made on what is basically the power of a modern lawnmower and so was quite slow and required massive wings which created all sorts of stiffness problems. The wings could tear off the plane in a sharp turn or even a gust of wind. Imagine a plywood skeleton covered in canvas held together by suspension wires. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_XI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bl%C3%A9riot_XI Thus the idea of cutting the wings in half and stacking them atop each other as biplanes or even triplanes in order to make them stiffer while maintaining a high surface area to generate the required lift at the slow speeds of the day. The stiffer wings also allowed for sharper turns, but suffered from more drag. But at those slow speeds, drag was not so much of an issue as it also goes with the square of velocity. That meant that biplanes had a big advantage in terms of maneuverability and stability and so outperformed the fragile, slow turning monoplanes in WW1 dogfights. But over time, improvements in engine technology allowed for much higher horsepower -- we went from 40hp engines to 1000hp engines in two decades. That increase in power allowed for increased speeds and reduced the need for wing surface area, and with the increased speed, drag became more of a concern, at which point biplanes were at a disadvantage. But during that transition period in the 20s and 30s, when early monoplanes were introduced and competed with biplanes they would still tend to stall and were not nearly as maneuverable. New materials -- corrugated iron -- were introduced to help stiffen the wings but even then the pilots of the era hated flying these "iron planes" compared to the more nimble wooden biplanes. WW2, of course, changed everything with monster engines and shockingly fast planes, leaving biplanes for the world of hobby flight and acrobatic exhibitions.
- bladedtoys 5y agoRelevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.60
- scotuswroteus 5y agoit's flying kinda low in the picture
- perl4ever 5y agoThat's not a bonkers 3 wing airliner concept, this is a bonkers 3 (x3) wing airliner concept: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Caproni_Ca.60_Transaereo_on_Lake_Maggiore_1921_%28NASM-SI-72-7669%29_%28tight_crop%2C_contrast_stretch%2C_grayscale%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Caproni_... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.60 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caproni_Ca.60