PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - KC-X RFP Mk II (merged)
View Single Post
Old 8th Dec 2010, 12:26
  #189 (permalink)  
BEagle
 
Join Date: May 1999
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
Posts: 26,848
Received 328 Likes on 115 Posts
Even ol' Bubba Boeing dropped the idea of BWB airliners after receiving some very negative passenger reaction to the seat layout proposals...

Just consider this. In a normal wide-body airliner, such as the superlative Airbus A330, if you have an 8-abreast economy class 2+4+2 seating layout, the outermost passengers will experience a vertical motion of about 27" if the aircraft banks at 15deg - which is a normal option for 'passenger comfort'. To carry 240 passengers, you will need roughly 30 x 8 abreast rows.

If you carry 240 passengers in a BWB with 'amphitheatric' 24-abreast seating arranged in 10 rows, you will need 6 aisles for access / cabin service etc., leading to a 2+4+4+4+4+4+2 seating layout. Which means that the outermost passengers will experience a vertical motion of 27" in every 5 deg bank - I doubt whether this will be conducive to passenger comfort as, unlike a 15 deg AoB turn, a 5 deg AoB bank will probably be reversed to wings level rather sooner. Much as the Spams like their rendition-class seating in tanker-transports, I predict that by 2025 even they will have recognised that military passengers have basic human rights too and that ultra-wide bodied aircraft with 'amphitheatric' seating won't be acceptable.

Boeing once proposed a design with 10 passenger bays, 5 per deck. Most bays contained 2 triple seats (or 1 double and 1 triple) plus a central aisle. This required no less than 10 aisles and would have meant very few passengers indeed would have had any outside view; probably rather important to the poor souls in the outermost seats where every 4 degree twitch in turbulence would feel like a turn reversal in a normal aircraft.

Which leaves either single-role tankers, or tanker/freighters. Either of which would be less flexible than a true multi-role tanker transport such as the outstanding KC-45A.

The BWB is an elegant idea, but rather seems to be a solution to a problem which doesn't really exist.
BEagle is online now