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Supersonic Flying Wing, the Future of Jet Travel?

ByThe Skeptical Traveler

The “flying wing” concept, proposed by a team headed by Ge-Chen Zha, an aerospace engineer at Florida State University, has won $100,000 in NASA funding to trying becoming a reality for future passenger jet travel (from InnovationNewsDaily).

Alt text: A futuristic, sleek, silver aircraft with a unique triangular design is flying over a vast, mountainous landscape. The aircraft has a smooth, streamlined body with small windows and a cockpit near the top. The background shows a mix of rugged terrain and cloudy sky.

“I am hoping to develop an environmentally friendly and economically viable airplane for supersonic civil transport in the next 20 to 30 years,” Zha said. “Imagine flying from New York to Tokyo in four hours instead of 15 hours.”

And the technical concept straight from the Nasa site:Alt text: The image is a presentation slide titled "Silent and Efficient Supersonic Bi-Directional Flying Wing" by G.-C. Zha, L. Cattafesta, and F. Alvi. It describes a revolutionary concept for supersonic flight featuring a symmetric flying wing that rotates 90 degrees between supersonic and subsonic speeds. The slide includes two images of the flying wing, one labeled "M>1" showing the wing in supersonic configuration and another labeled "M<1 Rotate 90°" showing the wing in subsonic configuration. The concept aims to remove aerodynamic conflict between low and high speeds, achieve high performance at both subsonic and supersonic speeds, and eliminate sonic booms. The slide also includes CFD results showing no N-wave boom and high L/D ratio. Proposed tasks include design refinement with CFD, mission analysis, and wind tunnel testing verification.

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