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JetZero
- rgmerk 2mo agoI wish them well but a startup building an airliner seems like an utterly impossible task.
- DrewADesign 2mo agoEh, if SpaceX did rockets… I wouldn’t be surprised if they could be very nimble compared to the big ones.
- rgmerk 2mo agoThe difference is that there establishment space launch companies were basically monopolies using ancient technology and processes. That’s not true for commercial aviation, which is subject to pretty relentless cost pressures.
- DrewADesign 2mo agoSeems like that’s what a lot of people say about a lot of legacy businesses though when facing pressure from a startup. Obviously doesn’t always work, but sometimes!
- a34729t 2mo agoBullshit i cant hear you. Commcercial airliners are sold at a loss and are basically giant jobs programs. Modern jetliners are enormously efficient already; there has been a continuous race over the last century to this end.
- DrewADesign 2mo agoWhy are you typing like you’re in an argument in a bar?
- usef- 2mo agoOn the plus side, the competition seems a bit lousy lately
- divyekapoor 2mo agoIf the numbers are what they claim. They’re going to make it.
- dlcarrier 2mo agoFrom an engineering perspective, it's a solved task. Designing an airplane is on par with designing a suspension bridge. From a regulatory perspective, the layers of bureaucracy needed to get approval to build a bridge has nothing on starting up an airline manufacturing company. Once you have a company with a history of approval, you can practically do what you want, but getting to that point is nearly impossible.
- xnx 2mo agoBig screens are an OK workaround for no passenger windows, but they still have to contend with severe structural pressurization challenges, strict emergency evacuation rules, and incompatibility with current airport gates.
- EGreg 2mo agoNo passenger windows is the correct way to go. The screens can actually show anything, not just replace a window.
- CalRobert 2mo agoHell why even travel when you can just see Venice on a screen.
- EGreg 2mo agoThis question is deeper than you think. Until the 20th century, most people didn't travel even a fraction of that many miles per year. The most prolific travelers, such as Mozart, did not travel nearly as much as a person who's commuting to work every day by car or train -- just to sit in a chair in the office instead of at home. When it comes to transportation, we burn fossil fuels and pollute the planet with CO2 for mostly needless reasons. Our generation thinks we're so much "smarter", but we're living on an ecological credit card that our children will have to pay, not to mention many of the planet's ecosystems, just so we can all have "memories of actually being in Venice" rather than simply a picture of us in Venice, which in the end is the artifact we have. (If we are that insistent on "being everywhere" and checking off a bucket list, perhaps "Total Recall" was onto something LMAO.)
- CalRobert 2mo agoYou’re not wrong. Having traveled a fair bit it does eventually turn in to basically a big theme park experience. I still like looking out the window though
- rezokun 2mo ago
- giantfrog 2mo agoAn airplane is not something I would personally want to beta test
- dlcarrier 2mo agoA few of my Mom's uncles were test pilots. They're… an odd bunch.
- DrewADesign 2mo agoThe people they do that have a lot of experience and make a lot of money. Fortunately, most of the world doesn’t have the software business’ cavalier attitude about safety-related things being perfectly safe.
- NetMageSCW 2mo agoBoeing comes to mind as a counter example.
- DrewADesign 2mo agoJust because they are worse than they should be doesn’t mean they’re comparable. Cheap Chinese consumer goods? Sure. But aerospace and software aren’t in the same galaxy when it comes to QA and accountability. Source — I worked in software for decades and currently work in aerospace manufacturing.
- deadbabe 2mo agoIf they offer free flights to places people want to go they will not have any shortage of testers.
- blitzar 2mo agoMove fast and break things.
- hahahaa 2mo agoGood job they have test pilots then.
- TEHERET 2mo agoisn't this just the boeing flying wing
- chasing 2mo agoFeels like no windows is almost a deal-breaker? No? Do humans handle small enclosed spaces with no way to look outside well? The mock-up image looks like a small two-or-three seat compartment, which seems like it would be awful. Maybe an open space would be less claustrophobic, but still. Imagining just a normal jetliner today with no windows feels... not great. And I'm not sure having a giant flat screen wrapped around me would solve the problem.
- SilverSlash 2mo agoI don't mind no windows at all if they have "digital windows" as substitutes. You're already 40,000ft in the air I think windows aren't really gonna help your claustrophobia. Not like you can open the door and walk out for a bit.
- chasing 2mo agoMaybe. I think people could survive it, sure. But I also wonder if there's a part of our lizard brain that just for safety's sake prefers to be able to see out of any small enclosed space we might find ourselves in. And that lizard brain is smart enough to know that a flat screen is fake. Again, I just think of flying in a plane today but with no windows and I, at least, am immediately squigged out. I also feel like a lot of modern air travel is designed around making something that's highly unnatural and inherently terrifying into something palatable for most people. I'm not talking about actual safety, but the perception of safety. Which isn't exactly a logic thing. More about keeping that lizard brain from freaking out too hard.
- SilverSlash 2mo agoYes it's interesting and I'm by no means certain how I will feel inside one either. But people are also highly adaptable so we'll see how it goes. Edit: also this older concept image shows windows: https://www.jetzero.aero/hs-fs/hubfs/JetZero-Z4-left.png?width=5334&height=3000&name=JetZero-Z4-left.png https://www.jetzero.aero/hs-fs/hubfs/JetZero-Z4-left.png?wid...
- 2mo ago
- calmbonsai 2mo agoNot this again. They’ve clearly hired a new PR firm Suffice it to say, from stable aeronautics at-edge, jet way footprint efficiency, ground support efficiency, airframe pressurization, cargo & passenger logistics, lifespan, and certification, there are many, many reasons “tube + wings” is the dominant airframe architecture for all non-military aircraft.
- nine_k 2mo agoHalving the fuel consumption may be worth the trouble with all above. Novel things always look unviable. First cars, first planes, first EVs all looked like dubious gimmicks sorely lacking the required infrastructure.
- Petersipoi 2mo agoThere are many reasons for a lot of things, until you overcome those reasons. That's the point of innovation. There are many reasons not to make a reusable rocket too.
- trueno 2mo agotheres just some serious serious challenges here i dont think any of them are impossible to overcome but it would span so many more years and so much more funding to get thru. fuselage pressurization which they claim to have worked around (sus) is one of the spookiest imo. traditional looking commercial jets, their designs, their manufacturing processes, their innovations (yes boeing/airbus do innovate and have for a long time even though it doesnt seem that way) have all been shaped heavily by human blood. to some degree a radical new design almost guarantees more deaths at a commercial level there's really no shortcutting this without it. dont get me wrong im super open to the possibility that something like this is possible itd be better for the whole world, but there's no way we get there without re-experiencing some hard lessons if we want to push it pash some sort of proverbial finish line
- margalabargala 2mo agoIf some letters were capitalized it would be easier to read but without this gets downvoted as wordsalad. Almost illegible. Punctuation exists for a reason.
- johnwheeler 2mo agolooks expensive
- csmoak 2mo agoInteresting choice to build in Greensboro. That's also where Boom chose to build a factory and it looks massive as you leave the airport. The plan for this company's factory looks like it will be significantly larger.
- jasongill 2mo agoThe reason that these companies are choosing Greensboro as a base is due to the fact that the GSO airport has a relatively-long 10,001-foot runway but comparatively little commercial air traffic. Additionally, the airport property is quite large compared to some "urban" airports, and is under a lot of active land development to make room for more manufacturing facilities. The HondaJet HQ is here (and has been for some time), as well as a number of aircraft repair facilities inside the airport fence, and there are ~5mil people within a 90 minute drive of GSO, so it's becoming easier to source talent for aerospace as well. Our long runways and the fact that we only have around ~7 flights arriving/departing per hour, and the proximity to Washington DC, is why GSO is used quite often for training operations for "Air Force One" - we see 28000 and 29000 do very low passes over our house around once a month as they do touch-and-go and go-around drills, so it's always funny to see the flurry of "did you guys see that?" posts on Nextdoor.
- jmward01 2mo agoI wish them all the luck in the world. Aviation is in a massive rut and needs bold new designs and innovation. That being said, what makes this company different from the others that have come before? What makes their path to success more likely? The problem is likely less the technology and more the decade(s?) of burning money with no ability to sell anything because you have to certify everything. That cliff is so bad we got the 737 max instead of a real new design. In an industry where new tech should be bringing us new commercial designs yearly we are instead getting very minor iterations because even the massive players out there can't afford to bring a 'new' design to the table. I -really- want to see this succeed. Good luck.
- eightysixfour 2mo ago> Aviation is in a massive rut and needs bold new designs and innovation. Why does it need bold new design and innovation? More people (can afford to) fly every year, more safely, and with broadly more consistency than they ever have. The success of the commercial aviation industry as a whole is breathtaking.
- jmward01 2mo agoThe 737 max is a great example of the rut we are in. In order to put more efficient engines on they needed more ground clearance. This has been the issue with 737 forever and why they have that odd flat scoop on the bottom of the engines. That isn't great for efficiency. It is because they can't redesign the wing without years long recertification. So, yet again, instead of redesigning the airframe to optimally place the engines they pushed them forward impacting the cg of the aircraft and requiring them to hack systems into the aircraft that countered for the reduced forward cg. Then, because they again didn't want to go through the recertification nightmare, they claimed no new training on the aircraft was needed. This led to pilots not knowing how to handle when the systems added failed. The root cause of the hacky design and missing training was avoiding a years long certification process that would have made it cost prohibitive to create an aircraft with more efficient engines. This is a minor change compared to building in really innovative new features. To your argument of (paraphrase here) 'it is good enough why innovate'. I flat out reject that argument. Horse and buggy were good enough. The telegraph was good enough. We only needed 1 mb of memory because it was good enough. We are missing so much right now. We potentially could have small, efficient, point to point air taxi service for the average person, completely dismantling the massive, and horrible to deal with for people, hub and spoke system. Travel could get so much better and cheaper, but instead we have the 737 max. An incremental change on a decades old design because real innovation is lacking in the industry.
- mrandish 2mo agoLooks a bit like Thunderbird 2. I approve.
- wxw 2mo agoHaven't heard of this company before. A good synopsis I dug up in their fundraising announcement: > JetZero, co-founded in 2020 by start-up veteran Tom O’Leary and aerospace legend Mark Page, is developing the world’s first commercial all-wing airplane. With up to 50% better fuel efficiency and lower carbon emissions compared to existing commercial airliners, JetZero's Z4 will offer the aviation industry a clear path to achieving its 2050 net-zero goals while also elevating the passenger experience. Working alongside the US Air Force, NASA, and the FAA, and backed by decades of investment and research into blended wing technology. JetZero looks to enter commercial service in the early 2030s. Where an "all-wing" airplane is, kudos to Gemini, > one that merges the main body and wings into a single lifting surface. This can reduce drag, lower fuel burn, and expand interior space.
- wiz21c 2mo ago"A clear path to zero": what a joke. It will be 25% less fuel, 75% SAF which are nowhere close (how will one grow enough without fertilizers ?), or worse, hydrogen which is even more nowhere close (how much energy you need to produce H2 ?). just ditch the plane. That will be so much money you can invest in net-positive technologies.
- conorcleary 2mo agoIf the design is more efficient, then eventually the fuel you put into it can be replaced by your magic solution.
- cassepipe 2mo agoExcept there is another issue, how many people do you fit in this shape ? If you can only fly 30 people that's not very efficient as it would mean more flights. Also I believe the further away you are from the rotation axis of the plane where it turns left or right, the more unpleasant your flight may be
- gertrunde 2mo ago
- freecook 2mo agoI love it
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- Robdel12 2mo agoThis reeks of Vern Raburn and Eclipse Aviation all over again, haha. That failed terribly. SV’s ego is pretty funny sometimes. Eclipse even tried to develop their own avionics.
- wnc3141 2mo agotell me more? I used to live in Albuquerque and always wondered what happened.
- freecook 2mo ago[flagged]
- Stevvo 2mo agoHard to imagine it as a passenger aircraft any time soon, but if they manage to get the demonstrator built it looks like it could make a useful aerial refueling tanker.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoWhat is their engine? An airframe without an engine is, best case, a drone programme.
- scottmcdot 2mo agoAnother pointless "up to x% better" specification.
- shinycode 2mo agoCould these flights prove to people that with their own eyes they can see the earth is not flat ?
- ares623 2mo agothe cybertrucks of airplanes
- blitzar 2mo agothe OceanGate Titan of airplanes
- twoodfin 2mo agoJetZero’s Demonstrator is on track for first-flight in 2027. The Demonstrator is being built in partnership with Scaled Composites, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman. Scaled Composites? Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time…
- sixdimensional 2mo agoWow, I blinked and it's been 20+ years since Spaceship One? Yikes, time really does fly. Presumably we haven't heard as much after Northrop bought them? I think it's awesome that Scaled Composites is involved... they really have such specialized knowledge of all kinds of aeronautical engineering.
- syntaxing 2mo agoFluid dynamics is my jam (most of my masters was studying it)! Even in the intro to fluid mechanics book, they spent a good half+ chapter why a flying wing is superior and how you can have it designed similar to movie theater seating. But my professor spent a class explaining why regulation will kill it even though the design is great.
- devy 2mo agoSo you think JetZero's blended-wing body (BWB) aircraft design will be killed by regulators? Why? Btw, it will take hydrogen propulsion for their planes to be zero CO2 emission.
- SubMachineGhost 2mo agoCan you share more on why regulations will kill it please?
- ctippett 2mo agoThe regulations currently require all passenger aircraft to be able to maintain positive static stability, which is inherently at odds with the aerodynamics of an all-wing design. As technology and test-flights demonstrate that these designs are actually feasible (and safe), I expect the regulations will eventually be updated.
- calmbonsai 2mo agoAside from regulation, the edge-envelope characteristics of a flying wing mandate fly-by-wire and, essentially, full-time autopilot. Even then, good luck recovering when you, even marginally, exceed the energy*altitude parameters during take-off/landing during high wind shear. Even B2s, with all of their on-board systems, have highly restrictive TOGA envelopes.
- alberth 2mo agoWill this fit the dimensions of a typically airport gate and spacing?
- decimalenough 2mo agoNo, but that's really the least of the problems in getting this thing into commercial flight.
- shrubble 2mo agoAn experimental/homebuilt of similar but not exactly the same design, the Dyke Delta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_Delta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyke_Delta of which about 50 have been built, has its pilots reporting a comfortable ride.
- incognito124 2mo agoAnother one I'm familiar with: https://www.verheesengineering.com/d2-twoseater/ https://www.verheesengineering.com/d2-twoseater/
- calmbonsai 2mo agoPlease lookup the flight envelope, cruise fuel utilization, and stall characteristics of the Dyke Delta along with its cargo capacity. Then you'll understand why so many Cessna 172s were built.
- jtrip 2mo agoIt wasn't more fuel efficient than the standard plane? Was it because of the propeller up front?
- calmbonsai 2mo agoIt was more fuel efficient only over a very narrow band of the entire flight envelope. Also, it suffered from snap-stalls and very poor stall recovery due to its delta wing. This is, primarily, why you only see delta wings used in super-sonic aircraft where these limitations are more than made-up for its ability to go trans-sonic with (relative) thrust efficiency.
- echoangle 2mo agoIt’s also much smaller. The main problem will be that the people sitting outside experience a lot of vertical motion when the aircraft rolls. That’s only a problem with the full scale design.
- luciana1u 2mo ago[flagged]
- fnord77 2mo agoWhile Boeing is too lazy to clean-sheet anything new
- jdw64 2mo agoThe Shape is really cool.
- iamwil 2mo agoWhat I really want, is a plane that can load passengers like containers--or like a rollercoaster car. Of course, it should be comfortable. I just mean that the passenger compartment should be modular. So you can put your luggage in and get settled while sitting in the airport, and then when the plane comes in, it just side-loads everyone all at once. Once landed, it just slides everyone off, and you can just I know that the crew uses the typical seating time to refuel and load luggage in the underbelly, but one can dream of not having to wait to get off the airplane.
- cassepipe 2mo agoI just want to go to an hospital, get an injection, fall asleep and wake up on a bed at another hospital somewhere else.
- wadim 2mo agoApart from just being highly unrealistic and not very practical, hospitals are much worse than airports in every way. Why not just get injected at the airport itself? And why an injection? Why not inhale some dream gas? Less intrusive and scales better.
- cassepipe 2mo agoI don't really care about the implementation, I'll let you figure out the details, work your magic
- xstas1 2mo agoThis is actually the plot of the hit TV show Severance.
- cassepipe 2mo agoWhich I enjoyed quite a lot, for unrelated reasons
- itsdavesanders 2mo ago
- ZeroGravitas 2mo agoTangentially related Good news: You can avoid about half the greenhouse effects of flight by slightly changing the flight plan to avoid cloud forming regions Bad news: this generally wasn't counted before and when counted roughly doubles the impact so in some senses you're back to where you started. But it's a much lower hanging fruit than anything else and as yet we're not doing it.
- CrimsonRain 2mo agobecause doing this will increase costs instead of performative actions.
- mi_lk 2mo agohow do know if a route would go through cloud forming regions
- kubafu 2mo agoA lot of us is avoiding more by choosing not to fly.
- orphereus 2mo agoI don't think that not travelling is the solution. A lot of people cannot avoid flying.
- tngranados 2mo agoBut even more people can
- pixelesque 2mo agoWhy has one of the images in the header carrousel got it featuring what looks like a refueling probe for refueling other aircraft sticking out the back? The other two don't. It looks like they've taken this mostly from an older Boeing BWB design for future air-to-air refueling aircraft (although the wing shape is a bit different).
- croemer 2mo agoMore like JetHalfAtBest than JetZero.
- robin_reala 2mo agoI always liked TU Delft’s similar Flying V concept which had KLM and Airbus backing, but I’ve no idea if they have a route to production. https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ae/flying-v https://www.tudelft.nl/en/ae/flying-v
- rswail 2mo agoMaybe start with freight aircraft which are less subject to the standard airport gate configuration restrictions? Avoids the issues about people sitting in the wing area and "enjoying" the roller coaster effect when the plane rolls or yaws?
- praveen9920 2mo agoThey should have started these as cargo planes. Less compliance issues and more flight times can make it more trustable.
- cassepipe 2mo agoI love how the last image of the landing page is a model of the most efficient plane ever designed on a pole attached to what may be the least efficient vehicle ever made, the infamous US tax-loophole-pick-up truck
- FrustratedMonky 2mo agoI'm interested in what you are referring to. Do you have link to this truck, the story..
- cassepipe 2mo agoThis covers the subject comprehensively : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
- mlrtime 2mo agoYou mean the infamous best selling truck of all time globally? The vehicle that actual working people use everyday? Just because you see a few people use them not for work doesn't really mean anything.
- cassepipe 2mo agoAnd your point is... ? Just because some people go to work in inefficient and dangerous-to-others cars does not make them more efficient. I am working a construction job, does this mean I should not think about what I am doing ?
- glitchc 2mo ago[dead]
- anonymous344 2mo agohow much the oil industry will loose if all aitcrafts in the world would tomorrow consume 50% less fuel? yes, they would loose so much that few lives arent as valuable..
- 7e 2mo agoFantastic. What Boom should have been, if they had any vision.
- ungreased0675 2mo agoWhen looking at potentially revolutionary technology companies, I tend to evaluate more harshly than I would with normal companies. Three things on the JetZero website trip my BS detector. First, it appears they’re developing their own avionics displays/interface? That’s a terrible idea, they need to be laser focused on one core task. Second is this quote: “The Pathfinder team has built and flown five generations of scaled aircraft over 30 flights. The most recent flights validate both the configuration and control laws of our full-size Jet1 Demonstrator.“ Over 30 flights seems really low. They should be testing way more than that, no? Third, I spy a full-scale interior mock-up. There isn’t even a working prototype, but they’re paying people to pick out carpet colors? I really want this to succeed, but it doesn’t look like these are serious people.
- natas 2mo agoFlying OceanGate.
- mmooss 2mo ago> The Pathfinder team has built and flown five generations of scaled aircraft over 30 flights. https://www.jetzero.aero/progress https://www.jetzero.aero/progress Why so few? I'd expect them to be flying daily or as often as possible, to gather as much data as possible. The next step is a full-scale demonstrator. No doubt they have their reasons, but I wonder what they are?
- Black_Cloud 2mo agoInteresting discussion that entierly misses the point. This isn’t being done for fuel efficiency, it’s being done for economic profit. Examples abound: the Hyperloop being the most pertinent. Everybody jumps in on the perceived gold rush of a truly stupid idea that's only real purpose is to generate mountains of money. Anything done solely for money is guaranteed to be s#!t.
- cindyllm 2mo ago[dead]