4 ms·
No, commercial jets have a blunt nose for structural reasons and pilot visibility while landing. SR-71, F-16 and so on all have pointy noses.
by carabiner 4y ago
No, commercial jets have a blunt nose for structural reasons and pilot visibility while landing. SR-71, F-16 and so on all have pointy noses.
- londons_explore 4y agoPointy noses in military craft are to reduce the radar cross section - it actually performs worse. A round nose has a flat bit at the front which reflects radar direct back towards the enemy that you're flying towards. Military planes generally have no surfaces facing directly forwards for that reason - even surfaces made of plastics reflect some radar when they get wet.
- Gibbon1 4y agoAs you go deeper into transonic and supersonic pointy nose is lower drag.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThe F-16 has a targeting radar mounted on a flat bulkhead. It's nose is effectively transparent.
- deepnotderp 4y agoThis isn’t really true, the military aircraft fly faster and at those speeds pointy noses help. Passenger airliners travel at slower speeds for which more round noses are actually better (eg to prevent flow detachment). In fact, iirc I read somewhere that Airbus’s more blunt noses are the result of newer CFD-based design techniques whereas Boeing reuses their pointy nose from previous designs.