Originally Posted by
tdracer
Yet somehow, commercial jet aircraft still look pretty much the same as a 707/DC-8...
I started thinking about learning to fly in the early 90's and started hanging around the local FBO's etc. There was no end of publications full of all the amazing new concepts that were going to revolutionize flying. Well as td says nothing in the basic shape has changed.
At the same time the industry has done an amazing job of incrementally squeezing a bit more juice out of the lemon every year. I have seen the figure 1.4% annual improvement in fuel efficiency often quoted.
The same people who were promoting the "revolution "were also saying this improvement in fuel efficiency would stop.
Still it makes some sense for Airbus to take a flutter on the UDF - They have the money and you never know what you will learn along the way.
As they say never let perfection get in the way of good.