Originally Posted by
unmanned_droid
The X-48 Subscale demo's were made at Cranfield. Worked with a guy who used it for one of his studies.
There's been nothing about a BWB tanker transporter out of Boeing. Maybe it might get looked at for the farfield study but right now it's all about production aircraft.
I think there's less chance an LM/Airbus product will win this time than last.
I suggest the fuselage design of the 787 is not suited to cargo conversion beyond putting boxes on seats or limited cargo on seat rail secured pallets.
In 2005 where I worked we put together the tooling and built the composite BWB for Cranfield (UAV dept) who were sub for Boeing Phantom Works as they originally went to NASA to build and supply the bodies but could not so they went to Cranfield instead.
They were below me on the hangar floor. As i recall these drop Test bodies were used to evaluate crashworthiness and ended up flown at NASA Armstrong (Dryden / Edwards) as fsr as I recall.
cheers