thanks wys

there are people (including me) on here that are actually engineers involved in the design and POSSIBLE redesign of the a350, and its nice to see the levels of confidence shown by some of you armchair experts.

There are many new challenges involved with the technology we are using for the wing and there are more than a few of us that wonder just how Boeing are coming along in that department………..suffice to say that we have heard rumours of a metal wing for that project……no bad thing.

The airlines will wait if it is the aircraft they want.

there is more than one aircraft.

380 is cancelled for families day, there will be flypasts on the 18th instead……….too much certification work to be done, apparantly…..

Vega,

I’m not up on the effects of crashes, do you know how many survivable crashes have had ruptured fuel tanks?

I wonder what proportion of the ‘fuselage’ would be taken up with the cabin interior? I can see that it would probably be able to have dual use, carrying both respectable passenger and freight payloads in upper and lower decks.

Having the fuel in-line or above the cabin deck would need some innovative thinking. Besides this, fuel systems can be made to vent between wings during lateral manouveres, and during some failure cases. I wouldnt like to see systems pipes running under the cabin deck, between wings!

sferrin,

1.No aircraft has had between 2 and 4 T7 sized engines hanging off the end of the tailplane. If one/some engines were to stop, a significant amount of drag, above the CG would develop. This would change the aircraft trim, moving the CG aft, an aft CG reduces the stability of the design. The control system would, of course, be required to balance these forces aerodynamically. You either make this engine failure case a control system design criteria in the overall aircraft design, driving positions/sizes of control surfaces, and engine placement, or you try to be innovative. Jettisoning the engine pods, to my mind IS innovative.

2. Should the aircraft have a succesful ditching or forced landing we have the problem of getting people out. Given that the aerodynamicists have successfully argued that disturbing the leading edge is worse than the cost of putting the exit doors/sections at the back, we have to put the doors at the rear. The following possibilities exist….

a. passengers must wait until the engines have run down, ensured that there are no fires, or ruptured pipes and that there is no debris in the way of clear exits, then they can exit.

b.the engines are still turning and a fan disk disintegrates, spraying the cabin with hot molten metal (should the metal puncture ballistic protection).

c. same thing applies to a ditching and you have the added urgency of a sinking, which will be nose down, ensuring that passengers will need to climb to the exit if the evacuation should need to be delayed.

d.options a to c wouldnt happen in real-life(tm) because everyone would be scrambling for the nearest exit. jettisoning a rear section of the aircraft, and it wouldnt neccessarily have to include the engine pods, provides ample exit room.

Of course, these are all options, but it is intersting to play with the idea’s to see what comes of them……for example, how do you get the fuel from the tanks to the engines?? in current aircraft its basically 3 metres of pipe from tank to combustor, but in a BWB there’s allot of (uphill!) pipe to consider………

coanda

maybe I should just bow to your armchair expertise? perhaps you could come and do my job for me?

go on then, here’s one………..

plenty different, for a start there is more than one engine.