EVOLUTION OF THE COMMERCIAL AIRLINER

Advances in materials, jet engines and cockpit displays could translate into less expensive and safer air travel. Shorter travel times and lower fares have made the world more accessible for both the business and the casual traveler as well as for the transport of goods, from flowers to fish. A future airliner may undergo equally dramatic changes. With the advent of advanced computer-aided design tools, airplanes may assume unusual shapes that offer higher performance and carry more passengers. The industry has already contemplated commercial airplanes in the shape of a flying wing, somewhat like the Stealth bomber. A short, stublike body that holds the cockpit would protrude from the thick wing. But most of the passengers, as many as 800, would sit in the movie-theater-like space within the wing.