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<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2"> Boeing's 800-seater 'flying wing'
prepares for take-off

James Clark




IT looks like the sort of
creation that could have
graced Gerry Anderson's
Thunderbirds show on
1960s television. Yet this
vision of the future could be
the way we all fly in just 10
years' time, according to
Boeing.

The plane maker is consulting focus groups in America to see
if the public would board the revolutionary "flying wing". If they
are keen, the company expects a prototype of the 800-seater
giant, twice the size of a jumbo jet, to be flying within three
years.

Known as a blended wing-body aircraft, or BWB, because of
the way the wings and body taper at the same angle - a design
that is currently unique to military fast jets - it will be much
faster and more economical than current passenger aircraft.

If passengers can be persuaded to sit in what amounts to the
wings of the craft, the first thing they will notice will be that
there are virtually no windows. Instead they will see a view of
the outside world on video screens in the back of the seat in
front of them.

The BWB would not have a traditional fuselage or tail fin,
instead using fins on the wing-tips for rudder control and
gaining power from three massive jet engines mounted at the
rear of the body between the wings.

Passengers would be seated on two decks, with window seats
so rare that they would become one of the most exclusive
ways to fly.

Although the flying wing design is not new - it was invented in
the 1920s by Jack Northrop - it has never been used in civilian
aircraft. It has been most famously deployed in the US Air
Force's B-2 stealth bomber.

The plane would fly at the same height and speed as a
standard jumbo jet, but would use just three quarters of the fuel
load and be far quieter.

Boeing confirmed that it was experimenting with the new
design. A 17ft model built at Stanford University first flew four
years ago, and a second model, this time one quarter of the full
size, is now being built at the company's Long Beach plant in
California.

"It looks different, but it isn't that much different from the B-2,
and we know that works," said Robert Liebeck, a Boeing
engineer working on the project. He said that Boeing could see
the aircraft as a rival to the other planned passenger giant, the
double-decker Airbus A-380.

Allen Mulally, head of commercial aircraft design at Boeing,
conceded that there were safety problems to deal with, such as
how the aircraft might pull out of a stall, a crisis in which there
is not enough lift beneath the wings to keep it flying.

Airbus, which rejected BWB designs, was certain that the
plane would fail. A spokesman questioned how such a large
cabin area could be pressurised, how passengers would
escape in an emergency and suggested that BWB designs
were aerodynamically unstable - a problem that troubles the
stealth bomber, even though it is less than a tenth the size of
the planned Boeing superjet. </font>

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