Booklet 1 Exploration

1UnderstandingCommercialAircraft

Page 2-3

Page 4-8 Page 9

Page 10-17

Flagship Aircraft

Flying Wing or Blended Wing

Advantages & Disadvantages

Word Card Association Researchi

Booklet contains 7 Key insights marked with this label.

Airbus A380World’s Largest Aircraft

15,700km Range, Turbofan EngineFull size two deck fuselage

Boeing 747First Double Decked Aircraft

9,800km range, Jet engineDubbed the Jumbo Jet

Boeing 787 DreamlinerFirst to use composite materials

15,000km range, TurboFan Engine Leading edge in design

ConcordeWorlds most recognised aircraft

7,250km range, Afterburning Turbojet EngineSupersonic travel

What makes it a Flagship?Definition of Flagship : 1. A ship that carries and bears the commanders flag. 2. A single item from a related group

which is considered most important

Therefore a flagship aircraft represents the best product from a company and should stand for something which is

class leading e.g. First to... Worlds best... Most...

Is it just to display technological prowess or is it much more than that? Does adding a name to a plane mean

that it is attempting to become an icon?

Are there other factors which makes these aircraft well known? Air routes they travel? Brand Identity?

Fuel Economy? Passenger Experience? Airport Experience? Shape & Appearance?

Why do we need them?

Flagship aircraft

i

Length

73mWingspan

80m

Length

71mWingspan

60m

Length

63mWingspan

60m

Length

62mWingspan

26m

335

416

550

128

Passengers

Passengers

Passengers

Passengers

What’s the next flagship?

Flying Wing Attributes -Low profile dragMore RangePotentially -30% Less Fuel usage

Just after the 2nd world war Northrop, an aviation engineering company developed its shape to be the next stealth bomber. However, fatal crashes due to instability in Yaw and stalling turned off the military and they cancelled all the contracts in 1949.

The B2 bomber still in service today was developed by Boeing in partnership with Northrop and entered service in 1988.To fix the yaw problem they use clam shell flaps on either wing to gain drag on one wing, or uses differential thrusters which is what is one of the most stable, quiet and invisible bombers in the world.

The difference between these flying wings and the hybrid blended wings being tested by NASA are that the flying wing has a much fatter volume of wing and therefore is less efficient. It also means it needs to have a larger wingspan than the Blended wing proving problematic for airports which have a 80 wingspan limit.

Northrop imagined the flying wing one day becoming a commercial jet, NASA, Boeing, Airbus all envision its inception in 20 years time however, not many have considered the design of the interior space.

Its not a U. F. O.

“Both very quiet and efficient, the hybrid wing body has shown promise for meeting all of NASA’s environmental goals for future aircraft designs,” (Nasa.gov)

NASA and Boeing just finished successful un-manned test flights with the X-48B/C hybrid Blended wing body aircraft in 2014

Position of Wings

Categorising aircraft

Type of Empennage

Type of Fuselage

Type of Landing Gear

Engine Position

There are 5 key characteristics which define the type of plane you see in the sky ...

i

How can aircraft vary?

After this I was able to better understand where the two concept wing types I am looking into, sat within the different variations out there.

Sesquiplanes, Biplanes, Low wing Mono, Mid wing Mono, High Wing Mono

Canard, Tailless, Rear single fin, Rear Multiple fins, Rear V-shaped

Blended Wing, Flying Wing, Single Fuselage, Twin Boom

Flying Boats, Equipped with floats, Tail Wheel, Tricycle Gear, Bicycle Gear

Above, Below, within the wing, Within fuselage, on fuselage.

Objective - Create a database of all aircrafttypes in the current market.

Vs

Long thin wings on the BWB have less drag than short wide wings, the only way a flying wing can match the BWB would to be have a wider

wingspan than current airports will allow.

The longer wing on the Flying wing would need more structural support and impact on the interior area more than it would in the BWB.

Flying Wing

The fuselage is all within the thick volume of the wing. Engines

usually within wing.

Why the Blended Wing

Unlike the flying wing the blended wing has already had many engineering patents suggested

for pressurising the cabin and theorising the optimum capacity of seating as shown below.

Blended Wing

Has a discernible fuselage and allows wings to be thin to be

more efficient.

-30% Less fuel use than a commercial jet of today because of significantly less drag

Large Passenger capacity capable of holding 800 passengers.

1

2

Long Haul capability increased due to less fuel used and therefore new destination reached in direct flight3

Window and Evacuation need to be solved especially with passengers loosing the ‘Window Seat’

Can this cabin area be pressurised with modern composites, what’s its maximum capacity?

4

5

If I am going to maximise the potential of this design I need to always keep these 3 advantages as insights to the design or it has fundamentally failed. It also needs to focus on

solving its disadvantages.

Insights from aircraftAdvantages

Disadvantages

Step 1

Participants are shown 10 outlines of iconic aircraft and asked to

name them all.

Step 2

If they do not guess all of the aircraft. They are now given a

clue about their history.

Has the ability to perform a vertical take-off

World’s first full double deck commercial airliner with a

capacity of 550 people

E.g. E.g.

Explanation of research game Objective - To understand if it is Name, Heritage, Colour or Shape that makes an aircraft iconic.

Step 3

For the remaining they are shown the photo of the aircraft

and asked for a final guess.

E.g.

Step 4

Now they know all of the aircraft, they are now asked to order them from most to least

iconic in their opinion.

E.g.

MostLeast

1 Male 22 UK3 Shape 5 Fact 1 Image = 9/10

Commercial jets last and spitfire first with Concorde, as they have strong British

heritage connection to him.

2 Male 27 European6 Shape 0 Fact 0 Image = 6/10

Has no connection to British heritage so his heritage of ww2 is the MIG from where

he’s from.

3 Male 24 European3 Shape 0 Fact 2 Image = 5/10

Made models of spitfire when younger so that was first then followed by all

strange shaped planes.

Collecting results Results - From participant 1 to 6, Images are varied as i needed to keep changing locations

4 Female 23 UK2 Shape 0 Fact 1 Image = 3/10

747 first as she travels on it a lot to various countries, and left most military

aircraft to end.

5 Male 21 UK9 Shape 0 Fact 0 Image = 9/10 6 Male 24 UK

4 Shape 1 Fact 1 Image = 6/10

Spitfire, Concorde and Lancaster all are top 3 because of heritage but the rest are in order of how much they are in public

eye.

All commercial air-crafts last as he is intrigued by military air-crafts technology

and heritage.


Put the ones he knew the names of first and the rest in no order however put

A380 near end.


Put all the aircraft she had seen at air shows first then all she hadn’t seen in

person before at the end.


Picked shape over any other as wasn’t aware of history except for Concorde,

didn’t appreciate war aircraft.

Collecting results Results - From participant 7 to 12, Images are varied as I needed to keep changing locations


Knew the stealth bomber and blackbird from films therefore had priority towards

them because of recognisable shape.


Spoke mostly of aircraft achievements and what they could do technologically, placing

all commercial jets last.

12 Female 31 Asian3 Shape 3 Fact 1 Image = 7/10

Knew of more long haul commercial aircraft than most but placed top 5 in

order of how much are in news.

Insights from research game

The blended wing shaped aircraft although only known by 4 participant still was ranked in top 5 in all but 3 iconic aircraft lists by the participants.

Male 22 UKMale 27 EuropeMale 24 EuropeFemale 23 UKMale 21 UKMale 24 UKMale 22 UKFemale 52 UKFemale 25 UKFemale 18 UKMale 48 UKFemale 31 Asian

965396786787

Results

6.5 the average score and usually 3-5 of these being named in the initial shape round. Also spitfire and Concorde were almost always top 2 on the iconic list.

Objective - Did my research answer the question I had at the start?

Commercial aircraft’s shape and name are generally not iconic.

All the commercial aircraft scored badly in step 4 when listing iconic aircraft. Concorde scored noticeably higher, this seems to be because of its shape and heritage. But is this type of limited edition aircraft viable in the current economic climate?

Blended wing shape is memorable and appealing as it scored 5th or above in most iconic scales.

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Overall

Documents

Booklet 1 Exploration