Airbus Bird of Prey unveiled

[chopper2004]

Am here at annual RIAT at RAF Fairford, so was lucky to be invited to the unveiling ceremony in presence of HMG , SecState and Airbus officials of the Airbus Bird Of Prey futuristic airline concept just now.

So here are my photos

Cheers
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/960x720/67079301_10157797260481490_866744608153927680_n_539d0f977f00 a817b58856d06e38304033c3bedd.jpg

[Hotel Tango]

Boys and their toys!

[dixi188]

If that,s the A400M powerplant, I hope they get the gearbox problems fixed first.

[CargoOne]

Last moment they have decided to paint the cockpit window on it...

[sycamore]

WOT,no flapping wings....?

[FlightlessParrot]

Last moment they have decided to paint the cockpit window on it...

It's wearing shades, dude.
But really, why would a serious aircraft manufacturer produce stuff like this?

[Smythe]

It will be cert to fly before the MAX....

[capngrog]

Futuristic airline concept or not, I'm not sure that I would be all that enthusiastic about boarding an airplane called "Bird of Prey". Now if it was supposed to be some sort of military aircraft designed to wreak havoc upon the enemy, then "Bird of Prey" fits the name and the mission.

Just my opinion.

Cheers,
Grog

[atakacs]

Ok I'll bite: what are we looking at?!

[FlightDetent]

Do the wing's outer parts slide out from below of the main assembly? A proper Bird of Prey should be dark green anyway.

Kh'apla!

[Bend alot]

Ok I'll bite: what are we looking at?!
Self explains here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_PupTXEcXU

[pattern_is_full]

It will be cert to fly before the MAX....

Frankly and honestly - I'd rather fly on an unmodified MAX than this. :E

[Gove N.T.]

It’s a concept FFS. It’s there to give ideas for engineers of the future about how they can mimic the masters of flight. Luddites scoffed at concept cars of 20 years ago which are now being mass produced in part. Hybrids, fully electric are now common place. So don’t scoff and mock like the Luddite of not so long ago

[evansb]

With some hydrodynamic design work, it could be a fantastic flying boat!

[Bend alot]

It’s a concept FFS. It’s there to give ideas for engineers of the future about how they can mimic the masters of flight. Luddites scoffed at concept cars of 20 years ago which are now being mass produced in part. Hybrids, fully electric are now common place. So don’t scoff and mock like the Luddite of not so long ago
Did you look at the tail?

Even the masters of flight have good surface area in that department.

[Less Hair]

It looks like some comic or movie style pure fantasy design to attract young engineer talent to pick aviation studies instead of going to the world's Googles and such. The more spectacular it looks the more blogs might want to report about it. However big props might in fact be a way to go again.

PS: I love that Vickers Wellington style geodetic structure.

[Gove N.T.]

Yes and I can imagine the professor of the aero engineering school saying that something like, Watch how the Osprey ( name your raptor type) tail feathers work and come up with a design that mimics part of that with a horizontal/vertical rudder, stabiliser” Someone might come up with a simple (“why didn’t we think of that”) idea that can be developed into a workable design
as I said, it’s a concept, build upon it

[compressor stall]

Airbus have a program where wild ideas are tossed around and some are put forward to the concept stage and maybe bits of them go beyond. Some will get through and some won't. I've been lucky enough to have beers with a couple of these guys and there are some truly awesome ideas out there that they are working on, and they'd just be the ones they're allowed to talk about!

If it wasn't for thinking outside the box and pushing ideas, we would still be with horse and cart. If that.

[NutLoose]

Ahhh geodetics in the windows, Barnes Wallace would be proud, peel of the skin and you have a Wellington underneath;)

[Aihkio]

Anybody. Who has seen a magpie at change of plumage especially tail feathers knows that a tail is not really necessary for flying. Though it looks like the tail helps.

Flying wings manage without tails but with some additional stearing arrangements.

[Euclideanplane]

The US Navy caught up quickly.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/935x374/klingon_bird_of_prey_e8673ba194817e61a1723f42a276e7f8a367412 c.jpg

[Less Hair]

Typical artist idea. A future aeroplane. Make it look like a, like a, bird. What a surprise. Like airport terminals that get built like a wing by the thousands.

[Joe_K]

Ok I'll bite: what are we looking at?!

"Airbus has revealed a hybrid-electric 80-seat airliner design – with "feathered" wing and tail structures mimicking an eagle or falcon.

However, the 1m (3ft)-long model, dubbed Bird of Prey, is unlikely to give too much away about the airframer's future developments in the commercial arena. It is "not intended to represent an actual aircraft concept". Instead, its purpose is to "inspire a new generation of aeronautical engineers", says Airbus, which displayed the model at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) on 19 July."

from https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/riat-airbus-unveils-bird-of-prey-concept-459783/

[JumpJumpJump]

Typical artist idea. A future aeroplane. Make it look like a, like a, bird. What a surprise. Like airport terminals that get built like a wing by the thousands.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/554x554/images_ace6af53851a050c173e7bd2cbb6194b0ee425ed.jpeg
You'll find past and present aircraft designers also looked to the birds....

[FlightlessParrot]

It’s a concept FFS. It’s there to give ideas for engineers of the future about how they can mimic the masters of flight. Luddites scoffed at concept cars of 20 years ago which are now being mass produced in part. Hybrids, fully electric are now common place. So don’t scoff and mock like the Luddite of not so long ago

Well, I suppose it might be that the feathers are the visible sign of a much more active management of the control surfaces, made possible by increased computing power: birds do seem to manage more by constant adjustments of their feathers than by inherent stability: presumably there's an energy advantage there, if nature goes that way (except for birds that spend a lot of time gliding, and that's not really an exception). The fuselage-wing join reminds me of an upside-down F4U Corsair, and I suppose there'd be similar advantages: an aerodynamic wing, and the geometry helps with large propellers.

But you would have to wonder about noise, and certification of a control system like that for civil use. And it looks like the sort of thing school kids doodle in their exercise books, but maybe that's the real point: get the doodling focused on practicality and energy efficiency, rather than speed.

[UltraFan]

A very nice looking plane. And some of it is quite realistic. The curved wing roots have been used on A380, multiblade props are used on An-70, albeit with fewer blades.

The looks are designed for marketing. Most European heads of military departments are now civilian and some of them are women. Like any project, it needs initial financing, and that comes from government funds, so the looks are designed to impress the voters. Strong first impressions will help when it comes to voting for preliminary contracts based on this concept.

Well done, Airbus.

[Winemaker]

The fuselage-wing join reminds me of an upside-down F4U Corsair....

Yes, had the same thought. It also, for some reason, reminds me of a PBY. I guess it looks like it's made for water landings....

[Semreh]

The A400 M Atlas has counter rotating propellers on each wing, configured such that the propeller blades travel downwards between the engines on a wing - this mock up has the blades travelling upwards between the engines on the same wing. I wonder if there is a technical reason behind that, or just happenstance when somebody constructed the mock up.