johnbpatson

Airbus almost always has a flying wing illustration for its stories about hydrogen. Pretty sure it even published “research” showing that passengers will love being in a row of seats 20 long with windows only for the very few.
Promises passengers bars, showers, and surround screens too – where have we heard that before?

Will1

I like Natilus. The concept makes sense, even if the published timescales are the usual capital-snaring nonsense. It was not so long ago that Natilus was breathlessly informing us that we could expect deliveries to begin in 2025.

I have always wondered if the founders meant to name the company “Nautilus”, but a spelling mistake found its way into a press release or a filing or something, and then it was too late.

However, the company has greatly disappointed me by removing the most attention-grabbing quote I have ever seen in corporate website:

“VU’s taken a leading investment position with the confidence that Aleksey and the Natius team is going to unf*ck the movement of goods globally in a very big way.” - Andrew Zalasin, VU Ventures

That’s my editing with the asterisk. I doubt that AVweb would tolerate the full vibrancy of this wonderful quote.

Arthur_Foyt

" it says will use 30% less fuel than a conventional aircraft of similar capacity"

Only if it flies a lot slower.
You cannot add that much cross section without penalty.

1 reply

andy

True, but the flying public doesn’t seem to mind that airliners are getting slower, and for freight you only have to be faster than a ship.

1 reply

BillG

The concept is reasonable but I am extremely skeptical that a startup can do this in any time frame let alone by 2030. The cost and complexity of designing, building and certifying even a conventional airliner is very daunting. Doing this with an entirely new concept that has not yet been accepted by the marketplace seems impossible.

Hoosier84

Sure, bars, showers, spas, water parks, bowling alleys… in the end it will be as many seats as they can cram into a triangle…

Chris_Landry

A few things come to mind (other than the near-impossibility of a start up pulling off a project like this):

• Is there a weight penalty to be paid to deal with pressurization in a flat body like this, compared to a cylinder or near-cylinder? How does this extra weight impact the efficiency?
• What does cabin evacuation look like for a super-wide body like this? Will there have to be be a larger number of exit doors? How does that affect weight and structure?
• At first glance, it would seem like the engine intakes are in a low pressure area. How does that affect efficiency? Maybe they are high enough above the fuselage that it is not a big factor but it seems like airflow management into the engines is going to be tricky.

Arthur_Foyt

Judging from every efficient glider design, no one adds cross-sectional area to increase efficiency. Then again, I’ve never seen anyone want to store all that fuel in the same structure as the passengers either.