Another really nice looking delta wing aeroplane was the Boeing 2707.

They tried to compete with us Europeans then, and it all ended in tears and it'll end in tears again.

The Americans spent more money than us and finished up with nothing. We finished up with the world's best plane.



[This message has been edited by twistedenginestarter (edited 06 April 2001).]

Prof2DMA

One possible reason behind the canard layout is the opportunity it offers to land and take off using a flapped delta. On the Tu144 as soon as the very high lift canards were extended the very large nose up trim change allowed (required) the wing trailing edge surfaces to all be dumped a long way down, doing great things for the wing Cl max. Compare this to the Concorde which unsticks and flares with a negative flap angle on the wing. I believe the difference between approach speeds with the two Tu144 variants (with and without canards) may have been as much as 30 -35 kts.

JF

While this discussion is facinating, Its also amusing, With all these experts, especially Mr Twistedenginestarter, critiqueing this design, I think that Boeing could save Millions by just hiring the members of Pprune! While its true that the US SST never got off the drawing boards, I wonder if the manyfacturers of the Concorde would have liked to trade places with Boeing vis a vis the 747...I know their accounting departments would have! One must take it on faith that alot of the research has already taken place, and that Boeing is not going to proceed with such a project unless its feasible. For all the critisism about Boeing being conservative, old fashioned etc You have to admit that not alot of their designs have failed commercially. So sit back, relax, have faith in the Boeing engineers, and if they are able to pull this off, it will undoubtably be a great airplane to fly...Just like the A-380, If Airbus can pull this off Not one of you out there would pass up the chance to fly one.