Let’s look closer at the evolution of modern aircraft starting with the creation of the Hybrid Wing Body design up to the attempts to develop unmanned airplanes.
Switching to Hybrid Wing Body
The result is a new light beaming and looking good so far is the Blended Wing Body (BWB) which is also refer to Hybrid Wing Body (HWB). This design is still on experimental stage and may as well change the whole course of airline industry for real good.
A good example of this design is the Northrop Grumman B2 spirit. Still, this design will be used for general airline for passengers. The top most advantage of this design over tube-and-wing is the steep cut of fuel consumption and can save a significant amount of global fuel consumption.
The testing phase
Launching any design as new standard requires countless amount of testing and careful examination with as much prediction of worst case scenario as possible and more. If the design is not carefully tested and well sort out, one failure and crash can cause public panic that public may lose trust on this design and stop preferring planes with this design once and for all.
No matter how many times it is updated and whether it is final, safety ensured planes are built afterwards, nothing will replace public faith on this design anytime sooner. All of the technical aspects need to be flawless in order to launch this design. This is where the Boeing X-48 model has been created.
Experiments with unmanned aircraft
Boeing X-48 is an experimental unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV, built to carry out the experiment of the mighty, sharp looking Blended Wing Body. Unmanned vehicles are those where there is no drivers and are solely computerised. This magnificent machine of hope was created to gather as much data as possible on various aspects of flight related data to ensure the perfect flight for the future.
This model was designed to facilitate a full-fledged passenger plane as well cargo plane. Most of the focus of the design goes into building up a large internal volume.
Of course, this design does not come with a downside. The most noticeable bummer is the lack of windows. As a passenger in a flight, who does not like the top down view of the earth. Well, to compensate this disappointment, engineers have planned to install screen on each sit to show the real view in real time.
Nonetheless, with this disappointment set aside, this may still bring us a new kind of experience of the futuristic nation.