If you took a timeline of the flying wing, I'm sure it would look identical, a couple of successes in there, with plenty of projects that never made it past the drawing board due to financial reasons ( or most likely, people don't like the idea because it's not two wings fixed to a tube).
Needless the say the flying wing has some HUGE advantages over 'conventional' pointy aircraft.
No, because there's the Vulcan from the 50s (I know it had a tail, but it was mostly flying wing but they didn't have the FCS tech needed to do without the tail), then in the 80s the B2 and then recently the RQ-170 Sentinel flying wing. At the prototype phase there are a number of "X planes" including the X-47, TARANIS, NeuroN and others. It wasn't financial reasons that the flying wing never got going, it was purely technical - now that's sorted, then they're starting to come into service (aka B-2 and RQ-170).
The peace process didn't finish NISP - it was a technical fail as it used way more fuel than planned...
Does anyone remember when the AAC tried using an airship over Ulster, sometime late 90s/early 00s? (Can't remember exact year, getting on a bit you know....)
Yes, and if I recall correctly, it used so much fuel just to stay in one place it was deemed as non-viable.
Thats the picture we got from chatting to the guys operating it from Ballykelly when it returned very late one night, apparently quite literally running on fumes.
LJ