The future of flying is almost here. And it looks exactly as you’d imagine. TU Berlin student Justus Benad came up with the idea to revolutionize airplanes. In his work he wishes to reduce all costs and pollution produced by the airplanes industry. This way he created a project named „Flying V”.
His project interested the Dutch airline KLM and the TU of Delth. In 2019, KLM announced that they would finalize the construction of the prototype and then the entire aircraft. The designers’ goal is to create the most efficient machine to reduce the cost of travel. New aerodynamic shape reduce weight what give an opportunity to spend about 20% less fuel than the Airbus A350, today’s most advanced aircraft.
Things that distinguishes the Flying V from the A350 are small wings and no tail. Hence, the plane will not have horizontal and vertical stabilizer. However, this kind of technology we can already see in B2 Spirit, the bomber of US army. The passenger compartment is located inside the wing, and their places can be in each of them. Moreover, as you can see the seats will be angled towards the direction of flight and not along the windows. Next very interesting fact is that windows will be only on one side of the cabin and at first thought, it may seem strange. However, in this situation designers can use virtual windows, such as those used by Fly Emirates. The airplane performance as distance range or speed will be similar to A350, but due to its construction it will be shorter than its competitors.
Someone may ask when we will see Flying V in the air. TU Delft has up to 30 years to create ready-to-fly airplanes. However, in my opinion we will never see it. To revolutionize airplanes industry we need a lot of money and resources that only big companies like Airbus or Boeing can afford. In addition, we need remember that all elements need to be designed and created from scratch, that makes the construction of this plane much more difficult. Nevertheless, I believe that revolution of airplanes industry is right around the corner. Today’s most popular aircraft is Boeing 737, which first version was designed about 50 years ago and it hasn’t changed much.
Resources:
https://www.jbenad.com/flyingv
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/flying-v-maiden-flight-intl-scli-grm/index.html