A team of 40 engineers from the University of Cambridge and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has unveiled a design for the concept plane SAX-40, a “silent aircraft.” The design is the result of three years’ work. The aircraft’s key design features look stunning, particularly to those who are completely unaware of any mysteries relating to aerodynamics. The concept is what is known as a Blended Wing Body design. The aircraft’s flattened and tailless body resembles the shape of a bat. The noise produced by the craft while cruising would stay within the range of noise caused by a washing machine, Reuter’s reports.
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| The SAX-40 is the first passenger aircraft of hybrid design |
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“The radical design of a new passenger aircraft has been unveiled. The aircraft’s technical characteristics are unlikely to look impressive to you if you’re not an aviation buff,” said Academician Valentin Belokon, an expert in aerodynamics with Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics. “The aircraft weighs 150 tons; it takes off at about 900 km/h carrying 215 passengers. Well, there’s nothing special about the above features. The flight range is around 9,500 km, this one looks pretty extensive,” added Belokon. So what is so radical about the design of the new plane?
First and foremost, the SAX-40 can improve fuel/">fuel economy by 35% compared with the most fuel-efficient contemporary airliner. The new aircraft seems to have good prospects for becoming a savior of the civil aviation, especially if airlines should pay the “green tax” on emissions of their planes.
“This outstanding fuel efficiency is undoubtedly the result of a most original approach in terms of design,” said Belokon. “The SAX-40 is the first passenger aircraft of a hybrid design that uses the wings of a conventional plane smoothly blended into a wide tailless body. As a rule, it takes a lot of effort to come up with this sort of concept design features. No doubts about it, the huge progress in the use of supercomputers helped the designers to complete the job faster than expected. The design of a plane is not based on prefab formulas, in this case it’s mostly a matter of art coupled with the power of computer experimentation,” said Belokon.
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