Blended Wing Body Project

Summary

The blended-wing-body project involves the development of a large commercial aircraft concept, capable of carrying 800+ passengers. Our work involves multidisciplinary optimization of the design as well as analytic and experimental studies of stability and control using small-scale flight research vehicles.

What's New

• The BWB-17 construction is complete and constrained vehicle tests are underway. The figure below shows the flight control testbed at Moffett Field (along with a wee version of Mark Page).

• Here is another view of the BWB-17 taxiing at Moffett Federal Airfield

• The first six-foot model flew successfully on 8/10/95. Here is a very short (1.3M) quicktime video clip of the flight as a glider. The first powered flight on 8/12/95 was also a great success.

Documents

(Most of the following files are available only to BWB team members.)

• Paper in progress on large aircraft optimization.
• BWB Public Page at Langley
• BWB Private Pages at Langley
• On-Going In-House BWB Discussion
• BWB Team
• AP Story on Airbus A3XX
• More on Airbus A3XX
• Aerospatiale's BWB Article
• Config. 20 Data
• Current Engine Data for synthesis and MDO work.
• Comments on cost model for synthesis and MDO work.
• Cost routine for synthesis and MDO work.
• Some interim notes on MDO constraints.
• Summary of BWB cabin layout study.