You certainly have already been on a plane or two, and you probably had a thought or two about how amazing today’s technology is, making you not only comfortable but also entertained while floating between the clouds.
But I guess it’s time we forget about the typical tube-and-wing configuration, as the world’s best aerospace engineers are developing mind-blowing concepts for future airliners that would take air travel to a whole new awesome level.
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#1 – Aether Cruise Airship
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Although airships have slowly vanished in the mid-20th century, in the past couple of years, some adventurous aerospace designers have started working on bringing advanced airships back to life.
The Aether airship is a very interesting concept developed by Mac Byers, who designed a shark-looking airship that reflects both futurism and safety to avoid the association many people make between airships and disasters
(such as the Hindenburg explosion).
The Aether is more like a luxury cruise ship, in which passengers would enjoy the scenic sky through huge windows, comfortable rooms, a wide variety of dining options, and enough amenities so they wouldn’t have to leave the airship.
The design clearly inspires the futurism most of us would like to see, even though it’s just a concept. In fact, some companies are investigating airship concepts as well, so who knows, airships might make a comeback within a few years to pamper modern tourists.
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#2 – Boeing Blended Wing Body Airliner
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Boeing engineers are working on something totally different from their typical designs. This time, instead of the fuselage-and-wing design, they are planning a blended-wing aircraft! In the blended-wing design, the distinction between the fuselage and wings is removed, making the two parts flow into one another.
Researchers from both Boeing and NASA have started experimenting blended wings for military and commercial purposes. The two parties built the X-48, an airplane with a blended-wing design, to test the aerodynamic possibilities.
The tests were actually successful, demonstrating that the X-48 is remarkably quieter, with brilliant fuel efficiency and a high payload. Boeing is considering a military application for this concept mainly for aerial refueling and airlift purposes, while NASA is looking at developing airliners’ prototypes for civilian applications within about 20 years.
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#3 – Reaction Engines A2
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Reaction Engines Limited (a British company) developed a futuristic-looking concept for an airliner called A2, which would be able to travel at hypersonic speeds while being environment-friendly.
The A2 airliner uses the Scimitar engine (another design from Reaction Engines) and if you have no idea what the Scimitar engine is, it simply uses technology that’s derived from the SABRE engine (btw, both these engines are hybrid) but while the SABRE relies on rocket engines, the Scimitar uses a normal air-breathing jet engine design along with a hybrid ramjet.
What’s really interesting is that when the Scimitar is traveling at extreme speed, it uses the ramjet, but during landing and takeoff, it employs a high bypass mode that works like a normal jet engine.
The A2 would fly at a hypersonic speed only over unpopulated areas or the ocean due to the excessive sonic noise and would travel at below-the-speed-of-sound over populated areas. The A2’s highest speed would enable it to travel from Australia to northern Europe in only 5 hours!
However, there is only one concern about the A2. It has not a single window because of worries about pressure on the airframe. This can make claustrophobics freak out!
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#4 – Bombardier Antipode
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The UK isn’t the only one to come up with hypersonic aerospace designs, the Canadian company, Bombardier, developed their concept business jet “the Antipode”. At top speed, this small airplane can fly from NY to London is just eleven minutes!
Unlike the A2, the Antipode uses an improved version of the normal ramjet engine, called the scramjet engine. The latter doesn’t have any moving parts, like compressors or fans, but rather forces air through the engine based on the speed of the airplane. Isn’t this amazing!
So once the Antipode gets to cruising speed and altitude, the scramjet would accelerate the vehicle to top speed (Mach 24) but to launch off the ground, the speedy jet would use rocket boosters.
It is still debated if the Antipode will ever see the light, but its concepts are interesting enough to probably be used in the production of future airliners.
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#5 – Boeing Pelican
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Boeing developed a concept of a huge transoceanic airplane that flies using an aerodynamic phenomenon called the ground effect, in which low-flying objects with uniquely-shaped wings can trap air underneath and glide perfectly across water using a cushion.
The aircraft would employ the ground effect over the ocean at 20 feet (6 m) above water. Although the Pelican was originally designed to carry cargo, the concept can also apply to commercial airliners.
Actually, it’s a promising design that could be the world’s largest airplane, with a wingspan of 500 feet (150 km). Strangely, Boeing has left the concept behind in the early 2000s without any known explanations.
But don’t lose hope just yet, the ground-effect concept will likely reemerge in civilian air travel since it carries larger loads than ships not only with a minimal fuel cost but also at higher speeds.
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#6 – SAX-40
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Aircrafts that fly at hypersonic or even subsonic speeds have extremely noisy engines, which annoys people living around airports and can cause health issues for those working nearby airplanes. So a group from Cambridge University and MIT developed the concept of a silent airplane, the SAX-40.
The noise is mainly triggered by the airplanes’ body irregularities, while the SAX-40 is extremely smooth. The SAX-40’s body shape allows significantly more lift than any regular airplane.
This means that the use of flaps isn’t required to get enough lift during landing and takeoff, decreasing the engines’ noisiness. For minimal engine noise during flight, the SAX-40 would use many different exhausts that change shape.
Generally, the special wings and lifting body design of this airplane are the key features of its ability to generate as little noise as possible.
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#7 – SpaceLiner
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SpaceLiner is a spaceplane developed by the German Aerospace Center for high-speed travel. Conceptually, this spaceplane has the best features of both an airplane and a rocket using a two-stage concept (similar to the US space shuttle).
Before dropping away, a cryogenic rocket booster carries the SpaceLiner up to high orbit. To reuse it, the German engineers are working on creating special planes to catch the booster while falling from the sky.
At top speed, the SpaceLiner can travel from Australia to Europe in less than 90 minutes! Thanks to the extremely high altitudes and an acceleration of Mach 25. Besides reusability and speed, SpaceLiner is also environment-friendly. Hopefully, the concept would probably start operating by 2050.
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#8 – AWWA-QG Progress Eagle
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This complex concept airplane actually seems like the designer combined all the awesome future technologies in one place. AWWA-QG Progress Eagle is immense, with 800-passenger payload and triple-deck design.
The Spanish designer included folding wings so that the airports won’t need to make any big renovations to handle the Progress Eagle’s huge size.
The Progress Eagle has 6 hydrogen-powered engines, which also produce electricity in flight, even though almost all the electricity would be generated from the solar panels installed in the wings. To improve efficiency, these panels use quantum dot material.
Furthermore, the airplane would also have a CO2 cleaner to effectively clean the air on its traveled path. Oscar Vinals, the designer of AWWA-QG Progress Eagle is positive that his baby will operate in 2030.
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#9 – Concorde 2
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The Concorde was the first supersonic airliner, while the Concorde 2 showed up in the past couple of years as the second version that would become the 1st hypersonic airliner. The plane would have a cruising speed of Mach 4.5 along with many other extraordinary features, such as using 3 types of engines.
Concorde 2 would engage lift jets for a vertical takeoff, and once up in the air, a rocket engine would kick in to shoot it to its altitude and extreme speed, then, the wings’ ramjets would accelerate to the top cruising speed.
To reduce the noise, the Concorde 2 has a strange-looking wing that offers high lift as well. Although much faster, the Concorde 2 can only host 20 passengers compared to the original’s 120.
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#10 – Mobula
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Meet the Mobula, one of the coolest new airliner concepts out there. This strange, yet incredible design was developed by Chris Cook and can host more than one thousand passengers on 5 decks, offering a truly exceptional experience.
Similar to the Pelican, the Mobula can also use the ground effect for effective lift and rapid travel. Moreover, the Mobula can effortlessly rest on the water surface due to its floating abilities.
The look was designed after extended research on animals’ shapes, but that’s not all, the Mobula excelled at low-altitude flying with the minimal drug during wind tunnel tests.
Although this concept might remain as such, the Mobula allows a fascinating glimpse into the future of airliners. The combination of rapid and large would change the way we travel across the ocean.
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