New Crazy Aircraft Design

This past week the press around the world have been talking about this crazy new aircraft design. The Progress Eagle would have capacity for around 800 passengers and would run on hydrogen fuel rather than the high-grade aircraft fossil fuels used today.

The Airbus A380, currently the world's largest passenger airliner, carries around 525 people. 

Barcelona born Oscar Vi?als' design uses six hydrogen fuel engines - one to drive a central screw-type engine at the rear to achieve the thrust needed to take off along with five superconductive engines.
Once it reaches the right altitude, however, the central engine turns off and starts to generate electricity from the airflowing through it.
Solar panels would also help to generate electrical power that the aircraft uses while it is in flight. Mr Vi?als said that the aircraft would produce zero carbon emissions and would also be far quieter than current airliners.

Excess energy stored in the aircraft's batteries could be recovered by special electrical storage trucks on the ground when it lands.
The cockpit itself is located on the second deck and includes beds an office and a workroom.

According to Mr Vi?als the aircraft would be made from lightweight materials like carbon fibre, aluminum, titanium and ceramics.
He said the wingspan would be 96 metres (314 feet) with the option of folding a section of the wings to make the aircraft easier to manoeuvre in airports.

 Mr Vi?als said: 'The Progress Eagle is based in the technology beyond 2030 with ideas from quantum mechanics, if we consider the evolution of current technology and future progress in uses of theoretical physics solutions.

These type of technologies can already be found in the most advanced laboratories around the world (universities, private companies, government installations).

 Boeing is preparing a 1000 passenger jet; the Boeing B797 will be a blended wing plane, that could reshape the Air travel industry for the next 100 years. The radical Blended Wing design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the NASA Langley Research Centre.The mammoth plane will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to the 747's 211 feet, and is designed to fit within the newly created terminals used for the 555 seatAirbus A380, which is 262 feet wide.The new 797 is in direct response to the Airbus A380 which has racked up 159 orders, but has not yet flown any passengers. Boeing decide to kill its 747X stretched super jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown by airline companies, but has continued to develop the ultimate Airbus crusher 797 for years at its Phantom Works research facility in Long Beach, Calif.

High body rigidity is another key factor in blended wing aircraft, It reduces turbulence and creates less stress on the air frame which adds to efficiency, giving the 797 a tremendous 8800 nautical mile range with its 1000 passengers flying comfortably at mach .88 or 654 mph (+-1046km/h) cruising speed another advantage over the Airbus tube-and-wing designed A380's 570 mph(912 km/h) The exact date for introduction is unclear, yet the battle lines are clearly drawn in the high-stakes war for civilian air supremacy.

The aviation industry keeps talking about larger aircraft and spending more time in the air. To me aviation has always been about speed. I have often stated that the internet has and is continuing to revolutionise the way business is done and speed is the name of the game. So why are the “so-called” aviation experts not talking more about Supersonic and Hypersonic Airliners?

In the very first episode of the children’s TV series Thunderbirds, the brave puppets of International Rescue have to deal with a bomb on board a hypersonic airliner, the Fireflash.

The episode was made in 1964, but they got it right in so many ways. The aircraft flew from London to Tokyo in two hours at Mach 6, which is surprisingly accurate if you allow for acceleration at the start and deceleration at the end. The Fireflash flew at about 250,000ft - still within the Earth’s atmosphere - and this could be about the perfect altitude. It would be sufficiently high to cut down the heat generated because the atmosphere is colder and thinner.

As for the flying experience, cocooned inside their pressurised cabin, hypersonic passengers would probably experience little that was different from flying today.

Acceleration might be a little faster on take-off with the plane taking about 23 minutes to reach Mach 6.

In a recent article I talked about what these super-fast airliners and quite frankly that is the way we should be going…

Fabrizio Poli is an Aviation Analyst & Managing Partner of Boutique Aviation Company Tyrus Wings. He is also an accomplished Airline Transport Pilot having flown both private Jets and for the airlines. Fabrizio is also a bestselling author and inspirational speaker. You can tune in weekly to Fabrizio's business Podcast Living Outside the Cube.