[icegreentea2]

There's no major announcement here (compared to what Airbus has been saying for the last few years). Airbus continues to believe that propfans/open rotor designs are worth testing for their next generation design.

As noted in the article, such a design would likely require rear-fuselage mounted engines, or high wings (either shoulder mounted or gull shaped)

What seems interesting to me is that Boeing's "next gen" bet seems to revolve around truss braced wings, which seem to also require shoulder mounted wings. I wonder how well these two features would interact with each other.

[kristianp]

I seem to recall very thin wings being touted as lower drag, but are unable to store fuel. Are the trusses there to support thinner wings?

Edit: the answer seems to be yes, they are thinner wings, called the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW). However why is it transonic? higher speed would negate the fuel savings. Also this looks to be experimental and not for the next generation.

https://investors.boeing.com/investors/news/press-release-de...

[DevelopingElk]

Standard airplanes used for passenger travel have transonic airflow. Some air is forced to be supersonic as it passes over the wing and around the body of the plane.

The Transonic Truss-Braced Wing is still experimental but prototypes have been built and they are seriously considered for the next generation. If I recall correctly where to store the fuel is a bit concern.

[ashoeafoot]

question , have mono in plane body engines ever been tried? i developed a fascination with the idea (which is obviously tertible for safety and maintenance reasons) but beyond some exotic early critters google gave me nothing .

[devilbunny]

Perhaps the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirrus_Vision_SF50 is along the lines of what you had in mind?