There are many reasons for a lot of things, until you overcome those reasons. That's the point of innovation. There are many reasons not to make a reusable rocket too.
Yes, but this "innovation" (as sold) must exist as a viable commercial airplane.
So far, I see zero evidence that this company has addressed any of the aforementioned challenges beyond theoretical fuel consumption and theoretical passenger logistics.
As someone who has 31 hours towards their single-engine ppl cert, I absolutely abhor the stagnation of general and commercial aviation due, largely, to certification barriers, BUT even having a viable flight-worthy blended-wing concept does not make for a viable mass market product.
Not related, see the near half-century of "alternative" wing and airframe designs that are absolutely better at a few pieces of the puzzle, but also absolutely failed to be viable when integrated into a fully functional and safe airplane.
This company needs to focus on success in a niche product role before addressing the safety, integration, and manufacturing needs of the mass commercial aviation market. They are not (atm) backed by this sort of "patient capital".
Not related, see all of the VC and failures required by Whittle (in wartime no less) to develop the jet engine or Tesla's corporate journey from Roadster -> S -> Y.
It's a lot like saying, "as someone 5 hours into driver's ed in my mom's honda civic, I believe that future stability control algorithms in self-driving cars..."
Or the difference between a (noob) software user and a software engineer.
No. I'm, in essence, saying the opposite. To use your analogy "as someone with 5 hours into driver's ed in my mom's civic I now realize how hard driving actually is and why ALL cars still have 4 wheels, still use a steering wheel, and still have seat-belts".
People with a handful of hours towards a private pilot's license have no (zero, zip, nada) expertise or insight when it comes to the design and manufacture of commercial airliners. You might feel like you do, but it has no basis in fact, because the constraints that really matter are things that engineers have spent a hundred years working out by trial and error (and crashing a lot of aircraft).
We wouldn't take airliner design advice today from the Wright brothers, either.
That's not what your original comment says at all. You're pontificating on future aircraft configurations while you're just learning the ABC's of being an enduser of said products. Being a learning pilot confers zero expertise on conceptual design. It probably gives you less expertise than being a longtime aviation journalist like Bill Sweetman.
No, it's not. They're saying "as someone with a small amount of insider experience, even I can see how everything is super conservative and no one wants to innovate".
theres just some serious serious challenges here i dont think any of them are impossible to overcome but it would span so many more years and so much more funding to get thru. fuselage pressurization which they claim to have worked around (sus) is one of the spookiest imo.
traditional looking commercial jets, their designs, their manufacturing processes, their innovations (yes boeing/airbus do innovate and have for a long time even though it doesnt seem that way) have all been shaped heavily by human blood. to some degree a radical new design almost guarantees more deaths at a commercial level there's really no shortcutting this without it.
dont get me wrong im super open to the possibility that something like this is possible itd be better for the whole world, but there's no way we get there without re-experiencing some hard lessons if we want to push it pash some sort of proverbial finish line
Even small changes to time tested designs provide significant risk. A completely new body style will inevitably provide completely new failure modes.
Pressurizing a tube vs pressurizing a pancake (or flattened sphere, or some other easy approximation) will have very different mechanical loading characteristics. Turbulence (differences in air speed/pressure) across a large flat-ish surface that also has a signifiant pressure differential will also prove challenging to design for and scale up.
Aerospace is a very high dimensional design process. Doing anything different puts you into unknown territory real fast.
If some letters were capitalized it would be easier to read but without this gets downvoted as wordsalad. Almost illegible. Punctuation exists for a reason.
Look at this world we live in. Billionaires are living it up and climate change is wrecking winter and here we are in the mud, someone like you can't even afford a simple shift key.
So far, I see zero evidence that this company has addressed any of the aforementioned challenges beyond theoretical fuel consumption and theoretical passenger logistics.
As someone who has 31 hours towards their single-engine ppl cert, I absolutely abhor the stagnation of general and commercial aviation due, largely, to certification barriers, BUT even having a viable flight-worthy blended-wing concept does not make for a viable mass market product.
Not related, see the near half-century of "alternative" wing and airframe designs that are absolutely better at a few pieces of the puzzle, but also absolutely failed to be viable when integrated into a fully functional and safe airplane.
This company needs to focus on success in a niche product role before addressing the safety, integration, and manufacturing needs of the mass commercial aviation market. They are not (atm) backed by this sort of "patient capital".
Not related, see all of the VC and failures required by Whittle (in wartime no less) to develop the jet engine or Tesla's corporate journey from Roadster -> S -> Y.