> A bold claim, perhaps they have done it but I have my doubts that such a large efficiency gain is left in aeronautical engineering. It is a laminar flow desi

> A bold claim, perhaps they have done it but I have my doubts that such a large efficiency gain is left in aeronautical engineering. It is a laminar flow design. It's been known for a long time that you can push drag down a lot below the state of the art in commerical aviation that way, and it's been used in a lot of gliders, but it doesn't come for free. Most importantly: The shape of the aircraft is almost entirely determined by physics, not your wishes, which typically makes it quite inconvenient to build and use. Maintaining the high performance depends on keeping the skin of the aircraft very clean and smooth -- even collecting a few too many bugs can cause a lot of problems.