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uhsguy  ·  1319 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Flying V first successful flight

The trend is smaller aircraft longer flights, say 737 size planes Seattle to Tokyo, not practical now but with better engines and lighter fuselages that’s where things are going. Hub and spoke model is dead for the most part. Also you can’t put passengers in the outer V, it would be a nauseating experience, and you typically can’t stack engines like that as they would take each other out If there was an event. And even without that is this configuration controllable with a single engine out? I bet not. The delta wings want 1 or 3 engine configurations or an in-line 2. Maybe the v solves the egress issue with aft doors on a typical delta wing but it’s a really costly way to do things - lots of extra weight due to structural inefficiency.

Realistically this airplane would cost 3-5x more than a typical banana body to build and certify, I don’t actually think anybody wants to invest that much in R&D right now. Why innovate when incremental changes suffice and there is no competition. Now if you could make a single engine reliable enough to replace 2, now we’re talking game changers