BLENDED-WING-BODY SUBSONIC COMMERCIAL TRANSPORT

The Blended-Wing-Body (BWB) airplane concept represents a potential revolution in subsonic transport efficiency for large airplanes. NASA has sponsored an advanced concept study to demonstrate feasibility and begin development of this new class of airplane. In this study, 800 passenger BWB and conventional configuration airplanes have been compared for a 7000 nautical mile design range, where both airplanes are based on technology for a 2020 entry into service. The BWB, shown in Figure 1, has been found to be superior to the conventional configuration in all key measures.