MIT Team Designs Airliner That Uses 70 Percent Less Fuel

[kpete]

MIT Team Designs Airliner That Uses 70 Percent Less Fuel


Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers recently released a concept aircraft design that could use 70 percent less fuel than current commercial airliners. The simple secret, they say: Optimize the aircraft for modern, efficient jet engines.

Jet engines these days burn much less fuel at slightly slower speeds than the original designs that influenced the swept-wing designs of the ’50s and ’60s. One of the main problems is that most airliners still use leftovers from those designs even though the older jet engines they were designed around haven’t been used by most airlines for many years.

Today’s modern jet engines are much bigger in size, and much more efficient and quieter, says professor Mark Drela, the lead designer on the MIT team.

“From a purely design viewpoint, they’re really mismatched; the big engines want to go slower, which means the airplanes really want to have less wing sweep,” Drela says. “That’s one of the things we took advantage of.”



Read More http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/06/efficient-new-airliner-design-slows-down-to-match-jet-engines/#ixzz0pdZpy2q2

[SpiralHawk]

1. Cool. Score one for the fact-based Pointy Head peeps - sort of the anti-TeaBaggers

[MidwestTransplant]

6. Definitely the anti-Teabaggers.

[zipplewrath]

2. Roughly the 787

Boeing had tried to go to a faster, smaller plane, but their customers told them they wanted more fuel efficient. Airliners have been crusing a tad slower for a while, but as the article suggests, most legacy airliners hadn't been optimized around these speeds. I'd be curious to know if they are comparing their calculated efficiency against the 787 or the 737.

[KittyWampus]

7. I'm still amazed at 70 percent less.

[HopeHoops]

3. Does it fly or do they just plan to park it on top of a building instead of a car this year?

I still haven't figured out how they get a car up there.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

4. This one uses no fuel at all --

Unfortunately, it takes three days to wind it up for a trip from New York to London.

[Blue_Tires]

5. where is the air intake?

on the underbody somewhere?