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Boeing is preparing a 1,000-passenger jetliner that could reshape the air travel industry. Its radical “blended wing and fuselage” design has been developed by Boeing in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center. The mammoth aircraft will have a wing span of 265 feet compared to 211 feet of its 747, and it has been designed to fit within the newly created air terminals for the 555-seat Airbus A380, which is 262 feet wide. Boeing decided to kill its 747X stretched Super Jumbo in 2003 after little interest was shown for it, but continued to develop the 797 at its ‘Phantom Works’ Facility in Long Beach, California.

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It was in SP’s Aviation, Issue 6 of year 2007, we had reported the successful testing of Boeing’s X-48B ‘blended wing body’ (BWB) experimental jet aircraft. The 227-kg three-engine jet with a 6.4 m wingspan was engineered by Boeing Phantom Works in cooperation with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the US Air Force Research Laboratory. Years of research and toil, design and development, wind tunnel testing and ground trials had of time coalesced into one moment when the unmanned X-48B took to the skies for the first time on July 20, 2007, piloted remotely from the ground by the Boeing test pilot. Since then, more than four years have passed. Even though officially denied by the Boeing spokespersons, is there truth in the news doing the rounds on the information highways, or is it nothing more than e-rumour? Then, has Boeing had a change of heart to finally go in for ‘giant’ airliner to rival the Airbus A380?

In the 1990s, the two biggest makers of passenger airliners and fierce rivals had propagated differing theories of air travel. While the Airbus came up with the ‘hub and spoke’ concept which called for a mix of big and small aircraft, Boeing stuck to the idea of suitable mid-sized aircraft for its ‘point-to-point’ concept, seemingly favoured by the air travellers of today. Airbus produced the massive A380 which with a seating capacity of up to 800 seats in support of the ‘hub-to-hub’ part of the air travel is the world’s largest commercial airliner today. Boeing on the other hand continued to struggle to master its highly fuel-efficient, light-weight ‘composite’ 787 Dreamliner 250-300 seat to support its ‘point-to-point’ concept. Both the A380 and B787 were plagued with a series of delays but the Airbus stole a four-year lead with the commercial launch of A380 in October 2007 versus Boeing which handed over the first B787 to its launch customer late last year.

Be that as it may, both the rivals soon realised the merits of both concepts vis-à-vis passenger capacity and fuel efficiency. Airbus quickly got on to the A350 ‘composite’ answer to the Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, finally taking shape as the A350XWB design. But having accumulated $13 billion ( Rs. 65,000 crore) in development costs, it is stuck with the A380 at least for a couple of decades. Whereas if the story about its roll-out in the near future is true, Boeing’s blended behemoth could prove to be the “ultimate Airbus crusher” in the perennial war between the two ‘giants’. How?

There are many significant advantages in the ‘blended wing and fuselage’ design, also known as ‘blended wing body (BWB)’, the most important being the lift to drag (L/D) ratio which is expected to increase by an amazing 50 per cent. Reason: it is not only the wings but practically the entire airframe (thanks to the blended design) which contributes in providing lift to the aircraft. This results in an overall weight reduction of the aircraft by 25 per cent, making it an estimated 33 per cent more fuel-efficient than the A380, putting the massive $13 billion investment by Airbus in its A380 programme in grave jeopardy.