22nd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Harrogate, UK, 28 August - 1st September, 2000
Paper ICAS 2000-1.1.3

FLYING WING VERSUS CONVENTIONAL TRANSPORT AIRPLANE : THE 300 SEAT CASE

R. Martínez-Val, E. Schoep
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain

Keywords: flying wing, c-wing, conceptual design

Unconventional aircraft are being studied by the aeronautical engineering community with accelerated interest and effort to improve economic efficiency and to overcome operational and infrastructure-related problems associated to the increasing size of transport airplanes. The objective of the research reported here is to assess the technical feasibility and operational efficiency of a medium size, wingspan-limited flying wing in C layout; a configuration which has many advantages at easily achievable technology levels. To this end, the conceptual design process of a 300 seat C-wing has been done, completed with a comparison of performance and operational issues with last generation twins. The results are greatly encouraging and predict 10-20 percent increase in transport productivity efficiency, without the burden of new or aggravated safety or operational problems.

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