Just another small point; when the B747 arrived, a number of airports struggled with the fact that their taxiways and parking stands were at a distance from the runway centre-line that meant a B747 tail fin would penetrate the obstacle limitation transitional surface while manoeuvering or on a stand. I don't remember the exact details, but it was a problem.
In your concept drawing the fin is 22.5m high, which I think is about 2.5m higher than a B747; maybe different variants had different heights.
All that shows is that trying to fit a revolutionary new aircraft into existing airport infrastructure is doomed to a degree of failure; fin penetration of the transitional surface is just one tiny detail.
If a team of engineers and designers were to take airport design and stand it on its head, imagine what they could come up with. It would take a decade or two to really change the industry globally as new aircraft design exploits the freedoms offered by a new generation of airports, and design changes must take transition into account, but it can and must be done.
Here's a starter; ever wondered why airport terminals exist? Is there any other way to design and operate an inter-modal hub; maybe doing away with private cars and taxis as a way of getting there or leaving, as well as forgetting any need to provide a shopping mall. If you start with a list of essential functions for the airport to provide, including 3000m of concrete runway, and put them together in a totally different way than is done at present, you begin to realise that there are better ways of doing it.
I'll go back to my previous remark in another post; is it not remarkable and shameful that 40 years after the introduction of the B747, and 50 years (I guess) since its design was first thought about, we are still building terminals that are so dysfunctional that while people can shop in them until they drop, when they board a B747, and get off it at the other end, they'll be lucky to do so through 2 doors instead of one. How utterly absurd is that?
Imagine building a railway station where to get off a train you need to walk down the whole length of it to get out through a single door, and vice versa to get on.
The challenge isn't to design new and better aircraft, it's to design a new and better airport system..
Last edited by Capot; 7th Feb 2016 at 17:15.