Interview: Robert Liebeck, Co-designer of Blended Wing Body (BWB) Plane 

In addition to possessing significant logistical and environmental benefits, BWB aircraft are absolutely beautiful! I so admire and commend you for developing this extraordinary concept, Dr. Liebeck!

BWB aircraft also have a very high internal volume for their surface area, which means they are great for cargo. They look beautiful too, so would be a big gain all round to the aviation world.

Teachers that love what they do is exactly what our education system needs, not those only looking for a paycheck and benefits.

May the force be always with you Professor! 🇺🇲

I saw this, or eerily similar designs, in Popular Science magazine back in the 70s. Hopefully, it will FINALLY be built and flown!

For over 30 years I feel I have seen many BWB designs on paper in books and magazines; and I feel like it's about time someone builds an actual flying prototype .

What a great professional to have on the staff- this generation of aero engineers gave us commercially viable and reliable jet transport together with space flight to the moon and shuttle- to inspire the next generation to take risks and create rather than go into finance and accountancy! We need as many guys like this to pass down their experience quick! I did my Aero degree in the UK in the late 80’s, poor time for any inspiration, most of my class went into finance or oil industries!

This is why the saying “If it looks good, it will fly good.” from Bill Lear comes from. It look awesome! Congrats.

Stumbled onto this video, watched all the way through and thought that would be an interesting person to know, his enthusiasm for sharing his knowledge to students was evident. The quote about engineers and scientist alone was worth watching the video!

I recall an episode of Beyond 2000 on the Discovery Channel showing this identical concept being "right around the corner," back when I was in middle school or so. And now, 30+ years later... I'll believe it when I see it, is the point of all that.

If you change the playback speed to 1.5, this is a much more watchable video.

I think that concept is a future base of aviation , for local line Ekip concepts is better standard

Wow great professor, so now raptors can run with this technology for more than 50hrs also with high payload to carry and fuel tanks to refill and also with lesser numbers in Air flying, for home land safety many countries will look for these - ultimate

Can't wait for the day I get to fly in one of those.

A gorgeous design concept ! Thanks, prof.

Codesigner of blended wing technology hu? Pretty sure Reimar and Walter Horten would have something to say about that.

If it looks right, it probably is right! This design really _does_ look right!

You would think if were coming in 2027, a working mockup would be built by now so 2027 is too optimistic.

The major problem with BWB designs is the pressurization stresses on the fuselage housing the passengers. Current design uses tubular fuselages for the equal pressure exerted on the perfectly round pressure tube. Non-round pressure tubes exert much higher forces on flatter parts of a roughly rectangular fuselage. This design would have to use much thicker and thereby heavier materials. Perhaps the BWB could be designed to fly at a lower altitude requiring much less pressurization relative to outside air pressure. Fly a plane at 15,000 ft and pressurize to equivalent of 8,000 ft. Yes there is more drag/friction from flying lower in denser air, but there is also denser air for engine combustion, raising compression ratios in the turbine section, and lower weight design for the aircraft overall, increasing efficiency in these ways

Humans learned a LOT in the 20th century. And a part of what we learned was that hydrogen REALLY sucks as a fuel, unless you happen to be outside the Earth's atmosphere. And we learned that liquid hydrogen is about 100 times worse than the gas. End of story.

Looking forward to seeing it.

This is where we should be. This design would make a great B-52 replacement, KC135 replacement. The fuel capacity or internal bomb load would be fantastic. It would make a good passenger aircraft as well. This should have been done 20 years ago.

the military version looks spot on. i could see them making the jump w/ the airlines coming on board once the design has been proven. time will tell, @ 71 i probably won't see it but good luck.

Looks very similar to the design airbus has been working on for a number of years.

And the cost. So much higher than a traditional design. Also issues with providing a pressurized cabin that is not a cylinder.

This thick-fuselage BWB is the first non-retrofit tanker design to come along in over a generation. And it really does look like the natural & right design concept for a tanker.

I like looking forward to the future

A bit like Boeing's abandoned Sonic Cruiser design. Hope it gets to fly!

Masterpiece!

gorgeous. long overdue. Is there any reason BWB couldn't be fitted or wouldn't work with the new CFM Rise engine? do those technologies make sense together? might it be... too efficient? 🤔😁

Kind of funny that the Horton brothers already recognized a lot of the advantages (albeit flying wings) in the early 1940s and were planning on building a bomber around this size. Jack Northrop was working on similar stuff in the late 40s, just funny it's only gaining traction 70 years later. Better late than never I suppose.

The stock footage video at 2:34 looks like an F-22, not F-35 being discussed. Is there really no public domain video of F-35 refueling?

I think what would be really exciting would be to combine the advancements of design of propellors and wing design following the pattern of a humpback wale to further reduce air drag - there are many youtube videos covering such topics.

Good luck with it!

That’s not an airplane; it doesn’t have a tail. That’s an aircraft 😂

Going back, see Northrop's "Avion 1" X216-H. Among the best of its class in all criteria, and markedly faster than any others. Also V.J.Burnelli making lifting fuselage body planes. During the war, the Higgins-Bellanca 39-60 cargo plane, and a similar Boeing 360-362 bomber. Several similar things from the Germans like some tailed Arado 555 versions and Arado 470. A few Horten/Messerschmitt versions with tails or tailfins like the Ho-18 B2. Not to forget the Me-163 Komet, which despite the dubious propulsion, was an entirely successful flying machine, stemming from Lippisch work on "flying wing" design. Many other "flying wings" with tailfins made very good flying machines too. They tried and utterly failed to make entirely tail-less, failed with wing-tip fins, and when they put a proper fin on it, it worked very well. Arup, Cheranovsky, Fauvel, the Kharkov KhAI-3, others. More recently, the 1970 Sukhoi T4MS-200 bomber: same technology as the T-4 Sotka, but better range and payload than the Tupolev "Blackjack" which got built instead. Early 2000s patents by Dizdarevic "Tailed Flying Wings", and the 2016 Lock-Mart hybrid wing-body logistics plane, and the "Frigate Ecojet": multiples of payload and range because they generate substantial lift from the fuselage. Because they have a tail, entirely controllable and stable. The reason the McD blended wing body was never followed through, is because Boeing owns it, and refuses to build to any sort of lifting fuselage design. NASA had to get Cranfield to build the X-48 models because of the intransigent refusal of Boeing to carry it forward. Aerospace is cowardly and if Boeing isn't doing it, no one else will.

If this is the future of subsonic jet transports why have Boeing and NASA committed a billion dollars to the trussed wing research project. It is obvious why the a blended wing design would be great for a tanker aircraft.

This looks Tremendous 👍🏻

What is the actual efficiency difference between you configuration presented here, and a more simple cropped delta lifting body? Assuming the following features: 56 degree leading edge sweep, 14 percent of chord with straight tips, aspect ratio of 2.0, center third of the cross section increased in height (but fully blended with wing) to accommodate payload and fuel, vertical fins as tip sails or a center fin (whichever is most efficient). Is it correct to assume it could get away with no high lift devices, using only the vortex flow of the delta plan form, for the high lift needed for takeoff and landing? With sufficient wing area for runways >2 km, can it still have 0.75 to 0.85 mach cruise, and still have better fuel economy than current airliners? Are the wings beyond the main delta shape of your plan form primarily for stability and control?

I can't help but think a BWB version could also serve as a conventional heavy bomber with a lower RCS than a B-52, but not as complex as a B-21 Raider

A liter of jet fuel has more hydrogen than a liter of hydrogen. Also, try to evacuate in 90 seconds using half of the exits.

In 1963 at the extinct British aircraft construction company Handley Page Ltd., along with other research engineers, I was involved with such an aircraft that also was proposed to have laminar flow suction to reduce skin-friction drag and the result was for a design that was considerably cheaper to fly because its structure was more efficient and because its drag was much lower. These properties were similar to what is described in this video, and it is not much more suitable that our 60-years old ideas were for greater efficiency. This proposal was called HP117 but of course there was no commercial organization which was willing to escape from the tube and swept-wing layouts having outside mounted engines, commonly in use. Its past time to "think outside of the box".

1. The puking for anyone sitting too far from the central axis. 2. Heavy. Pressure vessels are tubes for a reason. 3. Designing a certifiable passenger plane would be a challenge. Emergency evacuation would be difficult. Imagine evacuating a movie theater in 90 seconds. 4. Don't have an engine failure. 5. Mostly an aerodynamicist's dream. The concept has been around 30+ years. If the design could be built and operated economically, Airbus or Boeing would have done it already. Not so much demand for a super jumbo. 6. Look at the direction X-66A is going.

having the jet intakes over the top of wings provides lift even when not moving forwards...

Not bad if can replace those airliners and safe flight. 1200 mph is good compared to our current airliners can flight at 600.

The pressure vessel will be difficult. The heavy structure required to pressurize a contiguous oblong cabin may negate any efficiency advantages of your blended wing concept. An unpressurized tanker makes more sense.

"I think it is a good aircraft professor, your on to something extraordinary. The fuel reduction, and new fuel(HYDROGEN) implementation is a plus. I think I'm going to have to call you? "The Sonic Man!" 👍 "You have my full credit." ✓

A seemingly Never fading Fantasy. It's Almost a Century old concept. Seen many of these flying? Nor will you.

Very cool

It would be great to have a different mass transit plane configuration and experience from the present design, HOWEVER” the total failure of the airlines pre and post flight experience we “all suffer” on every part of this process needs to be radically changed. Unless you have a private jet.

At 6:19 you show an interior view with giant panoramic windows. In a pressurized non-circular fuselage?

What about the "flying-V" plane??

I have seen some plans and studies with model planes from the technical university Delft and KLM with a very similar setup some years ago. Nothing new.

bro peaple are allergic to canards? the plane could have swep wings that run into the body, and just have canards and fuselage to generate lift in high speed... this would solve the problem of taking to much space in hangars, it could just swep the wing to position in the middle of the runway to takeoff, and the design with canard would have much higher max take of weight, its safer, the only problem is fuselage stress, but for a blended wing you would allready have to use more advanced material, composite carbon fiber of some king... now we are running to hibrid aircraft aswell, without the apu and with batterys, to start the engine, to every thing, and we could also put eletric motor in the wheels for the airplane to pick higher speeds quickly, also to use the electricit generated with the landing, and fill up the battery without needing to stay with the engines running to fill the batterys for the next flight.

Need to run at X2 to get normal speed.

Isn't that the same as laminar flow ,just like the s r seventy one

It would be a nightmare for aircraft mechanics to replace or remove those engines above the wings or body. And I believe that the future will be container pods and aircraft supplied power and life support with self contained pods. This would involve the engines mounted on spars/engine mounted to the horizontal tails with the center fuselage to put the pod within. The positive aspect for this design would be quick turn around for pod insertion and removal, thus aircraft turn around. I believe that the future will be hydrogen powere with electric fan engines.

So whats the glide ratio?

The use of technology from advanced research obtained by researchers from a area not attached to today’s technology but from back working other’s information from the early 1950 to 1970

Wing loading is very low, which makes turbulence worse for the passengers. Bumpy ride. Important to hold a Tanker steady too.

Sudden up drafts and down drafts will injur anyone inside and make it too dangerous unless it flies very fast.

there is a weakness in it in that objects or other things that can fly over the plane hit the engines -- i think

“We may need to defend them” by showing them our specific type of democracy…

😃😃😃😃

Why not replace windows with big video screens so everyone gets big window seats..maybe live feed from outside sky

Its the fusion concept for aircraft.... its been 5 years away for 40 years....... the ageless clickbait, holy grail of social media.....

yeah right, like the 777x is coming just two yrs before this.

With you all the way up until the liquid hydrogen. Any engine can burn LH to lower emissions but no one has solved the problem of producing it economically. LH is somewhat like fusion power generation, always just a decade away. I know that government money can be drained away for the LH promise to build the BWB though.

Looks like sea gull.

How about passengers are not crammed into the damn thing like sardines?

“They” need this airplane. Which “they”? It looks like an amazing advance for commercial flight, but don’t prioritise the military. Everywhere the US gets involved, the situation gets worse.

Yeah and I’ve got a bridge in Baltimore I”lol sell to you cheap 😂

там царь Тамар собственной персоны на подработке в кредо ?

Boeing’s BWB never came to fruition.

Oh goody. No doors that will pop out?

It does a dis-service to the concept by tying it to revolutionary technology like hydrogen or radically advanced technology, when am immediate benefit is gained with contemporary technology. It's saying that the concept is held up on and dependent on the new technology maturing.

At least it’s not an EV🥳

Boeing isn't going anywhere if they keep losing parts off their planes during flights.

2027,,,,,not a chance. Probably not even in2037.

Are Boeing making this ?

Hydrogen is a stupid fuel

What the US of A NEEDS to do is protect its own borders and start rebuilding its infrastructure. Bridges, highways, high speed rail, ports and locks etc. America is a mess and yet the war mongers want 5 trillion a year.

There are lots of unhappy people with the actions of the US. They should stay home more and leave them alone.

BWB is a lot like Fusion power. It will be here in ten years. 😴

Ah Boeing

Commentary is slow and hard to listen to; I had to stop watching the video. The content may contain valuable information, but the presenter was as boring as watching grass grow.

None of these guys are Gen-Z or Millennials - says it all really .....

Americans again- patting themselves on the shoulder for … nothing Big lofty dreams - lots of blabla

This thing has a lot of vital drawbacks. At least it is not suitable for passenger planes.

Are you sure that isn’t a UFO?