It is if anything a study worth some millions, most likely less. I trust the American House Of Representatives and the senat in Stopping such non-sense projects if it comes to anything like prototyping or full-scale development. Even the Blackbird was on the edge when it came to cost versus results. Fortunately nobody asked the Senat or Congress those days.
Strangely, for the Blackbird, nobody ever asked if it made sense after all, while you can have a lively discussion when you ask if the Blackbird made M3.4 or M3.5.

Many misunderstandings come from the disability of some media (and euphoric people) to separate between a low-scale study and a full rate production or at least test program. I would only start talking of an aircraft if the approved budget is at least 8-digit (in 2007 USD), if the term “supersonic” appears somewhere add a digit.

Why don’t they go for a “real” B-52 replacement: subsonic long range and large payload for targets with limited defence. They have F-35 and F-22 for the rest. Bomber can be great launch platform for cruise missiles.

Another supersonic stealthy wonder machine is likely to fail in congress and senat, when the true bill is presented.

I would propose something like a sonic cruiser concept as bomber:

Actually I see that number 1, 3 and 5 would call for a variable swep. Maybe it is better to scale down speeds set in 1 and 3 to a limit that a conventional wing can make it.

You sound a bit defensive and nationalistic.
You seem more interested in bashing Boeing than applauding a new design.
If the news release letterhead said Airbus instead of Boeing, you’d probably call it a “world beater” and predict that Boeings days were numbered. :rolleyes:

Boeing deserves some credit here.

It’s a bold move and yes, Boeing should be congratulated. Especially since it’s a publicly held company using its own money (as opposed to one that is propped up by goverments).

You may Google the world and look where I post or prolifer Airbus news, or any special German aviation news. And when I do, I surely takle a different source than Airbus.com. Actually, I completly ignore Airbus press releases, but I am 100% sure that when I start posting Airbus news with comparable content, at least my direct preceeding poster would be very doubious.
Of course I am not objective on this issue, but I am neither the guy who starts to bash Boeing regardless of the topic. I just realize that Boeing has an especially busy press center and are quick out of the gate with “new technologies”.
When you re-phrase the press release and scratch the quite stupid talking of entry into service, it becomes an average press release.

Fact is that Boeing has a good run at the moment, and that whatever they tell the public people say “Oh, Boeing is so modern …”.

I’d say the same for any company that’s pushing the envelope of aircraft design…even Airbus.
It’s the 21st Century and planes basically still look like they did when Hugo was making Ju-52s or Donald Douglas designed the DC-1.
Time for some radical thinking? Yes.

Such comments always indicate low occupation with this topic. There are thousands of things that haven’t changed much, including cars, toasters and ships (still the lousy single hull crap).
I think Hugo Junkers would be very proud but sceptical if he read that his Ju-52 has any similarity with an A380 or B787.

I would think that late F-4E and all F-4F were the best dogfighters with cannons and sidewinders, slats and the J79-GE17 engines. Have you a comparison (weight, engine) of both (S and F) variants at hand?

Since there was no longer a need for passengers to load and unload near the ground, the obvious aerodynamic advantages of a low-wing configuration made it the preferred configuration for passenger aircraft, and that is the main way it’s done to this day.

I thought hard but couldn’t think of any major aerodynamic advantages. Can you tell me?

No. That might have been a factor with the old turbojets that were really underneath the wing, but todays turbofans are forward of the wing.

In fact a high wing would save considerable weight thanks to a much shorter landing gear.

Interesting that Airbus, Boeing, Bombadier, Embrear and Sukhoi have a different opinion. Do they lack knowledge the superior Distiller has? Do you work for Antonov or have you worked for BAe Systems?

The weight saving would not materialize. Many things come into consideration.

First, the landing gear is longer but you don’t need to transfer high loads through the fuselage. You can attach it directly on the wing spar.

Second, the location of the center wing box is problematic. You cannot bury it in the fuselage unless you seat people lower (which is difficult due to ditching/crash requirements).

Third, I think you might have some issues with rotation at take-off.

High wing gives better lateral stability than low wing. That’s why fighters use low or mid wings, less lateral stability. But for civil liners they increase lateral stability by dihedraling the wing, making it point up from the wing tips. If the wing tips is lower than the wing root, the wing is dihedral. Many upgraded civil liners go further by bending the wing tips up to increase stability further.

You need to take care about flexibility. In flight the wing has “0G”. It will bend upwards. Boeing press releases for the B787 have discovered this feature a few years ago, so that all B787 now have obscenely upward bended wings in ads.
Your dihedral would easily disappear, especially for large (=very flexible) aircraft.

Why is lateral stability better? Which airliner has “bended wing tips” for stability reasons? The (quite simple) physics behind roll stability are similar for high-wing and low-wing, just that the different location of the center of gravity requires a switch in sign.

Sometimes in business, you have to push ahead with an idea to get the knowledge.

So, say Boeing go ahead with the BWB and only sell a small number, they will gain invaluable experience in designing, building and tweaking a BWB. Something no ammount of research can ever reproduce.

In the long run… it could prove an absolute winner for Boeing. They can take that knowledge and experience and make the next BWB work.

Sounds insane… but its been done before (not necessarily in the aviation industry though. Look at all those alternate fuel powered Car prototypes over the years…not one has made it to production.. but invaluable experience was gained.)

In the long run, it will turn out that without major investments by the public no aircraft manufacturer would risk such a thing. Period.

I know dozens of research projects from Airbus that are most probably better funded, have more relevance for future aircraft, bring more (and likely) gains in efficiency, have customers (even if these don’t know yet), but still the project doesn’t get a press release.