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I think that a blended wing body design extremely similar to this was one of the more radical proposals on the table, when they were developing the budget and c

I think that a blended wing body design extremely similar to this was one of the more radical proposals on the table, when they were developing the budget and concept for the 787. Ultimately ended up with a carbon fiber bodied more conventional aircraft of course. Reading the URL, I think that anything about the Air Force caring about a climate action plan, or environmental sensitivity, is window dressing to say that it's also a operational benefit to have a tanker aircraft with greater loiter time, and greater distance possible from base with full fuel load, loiter time, and return distance.

topspin 4y ago
> I think that anything about the Air Force caring about a climate action plan Indeed. The Military Industrial Complex has figured out that anything with a lot of zeros must be Climate-Washed. Looking forward to our climate friendly hypersonic anti-ship missile program!
DocTomoe 4y ago
> concept for the 787 Such designs come up every once in a while in civil aviation - but then disappear, mostly because they would require new (expensive) airport infrastructure. Just remember that when the A380 came out, every major airport that was a viable A380 destination started increasing their landing strip length, assuring the taxiways could handle the extra weight, worked on their baggage handling and check-in capacity and created gates that had more boarding bridges. Now imagine what basically triangular aircraft would mean for that infrastructure.