Are We Thinking About Passenger Jet Design All Wrong?

JetZero's blended wing designs are one step closer to reality

JetZero Blended Wing
A rendering of the JetZero Blended Wing in flight.
JetZero

When you picture a passenger jet, whether it’s designed for regional travel or to cross the ocean, odds are good that you’ll envision a standard design: a thin cabin and two wings. Carcinization has nothing on the design of large-scale flight, it turns out — even though smaller jets used for, say, military operations have a much broader range of shapes and designs. Is it time for commercial flight to think along similar lines?

That’s the argument being made by the aviation company JetZero. As LiveScience’s Keumars Afifi-Sabet reports, the company made a big announcement at this year’s CES — specifically, an ambitious partnership with Siemens that will see the two companies work together to making JetZero’s designs a tactile reality.

For JetZero, that partnership doesn’t just factor in Siemens’s experience with automation; it also relates to finding ways to virtually simulate and test aircraft. “[Simemens’s] digital twin and industrial metaverse technologies will be instrumental in helping us design, build and operate the world’s first fully digital aircraft, delivering a better experience for passengers and airlines while also reducing fuel consumption by 50 percent,” said Tom O’Leary, JetZero’s CEO.

JetZero contends that a blended-wing design for commercial aircraft has a few advantages over the more traditional design seen at many of the world’s airports. Some of this comes down to physics, with the comapny arguing that a blended-wing design involves less drag and produces a lighter aircraft. This also has the advantage of being able to hold more passengers.

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At a time when a number of companies are also looking into battery-powered planes, JetZero has opted for a more wide-ranging approach. JetZero’s website contends that this design “is agnostic to future propulsion solutions” — in other words, it could work with traditional jet fuel, green fuels or electric power. At a time when the future of aviation holds myriad possiblities, that’s an especially notable approach.

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