“Some of them aren’t as practical as others when it comes to things like drilling or filing, but that’s just as much part of the learning process. “It’s great to see how much students learn from doing something practical like building a model that actually works”, says Brown. His students are closely involved, as they are with other parts of the project. Researcher Malcom Brown is heading the project. Test model Work is currently underway in the Aeroplane Hall of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering to construct a scale model of the Flying-V with a wingspan of three metres.
#Airplane flying series
“But the Blended Wing Body design is not attractive from an industrial perspective, as every aircraft needs to be designed individually, whereas the Flying V is easy to lengthen or shorten so you can build series of aircraft using 95% of the same parts”, explains Vos. This requires extra construction weight, which is no longer needed in our design.” This is nothing new it’s one of the ideas behind aircraft such as the Blended Wing Body planes (BWB), in which the wings, cabin and engines are designed as a single unit. Our claim is that the unladen weight will be 7% lower, but the total weight will depend on the interior and all the systems.” Construction weight The lower weight is largely due to the unique shape of the aircraft: “Passengers normally sit in the middle of the plane and the wings generate the lift this force must then be transferred to the cabin. “After consulting with experts from Airbus, we concluded that whatever else, the aircraft would not become heavier.
The prognosis for a lower take-off weight also turned out to be correct, although this was difficult to calculate for an aircraft that was still only a design on paper. My immediate reaction was: as critical researchers, we have to check these claims thoroughly.” Vos also thought that he could improve the draft design: “We gave it an oval fuselage instead of a round pipe, and it became the Delft Flying-V.” The aerodynamics research based on this version improved the results even further than the original promising 10%. “It promised a staggering 10% improvement in aerodynamic efficiency and a 2% reduction in take-off weight compared with a conventional aircraft. “Most new aircraft concepts aren’t radically different from current designs. Graduate Justus Benad from TU Berlin had come up with a draft design for Airbus, for a flying wing with seating for 300 passengers. Checking the calculations A patent that appeared in the media first drew Vos’s attention in 2014.
“Something we had been working on for years was suddenly in the spotlight”, explains Roelof Vos, project leader of Flying-V and Assistant Professor of flight performance and propulsion. During celebrations to mark the event last October, the scale model and the mock-up of the interior of the Flying-V attracted huge interest, and the story was covered by numerous media, from Dutch Design Week to the DWDD talk show. KLM is sponsoring the project for sustainable flying as part of its 100th anniversary programme. I n June 2019, TU Delft and KLM presented their plans for the Flying-V: an aircraft designed to save 20% on both fuel and emissions due to its unique shape. The concept was received with great enthusiasm, but a lot of hard work will need to be done if the sustainable flying wing is to be ready by 2040. The aircraft design of the Flying-V is potentially much more efficient than the traditional “pipe with wings” design.
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