Jet Zero is developing a revolutionary blended wing air plane for commercial and military purposes. They have been awarded $235 million in US Air Force funding. It will halve fuel use and will make flying more spaceous and comfortable.
The US DoD’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) funded a four year project to lead to the first flight of the full-scale demonstrator by the first quarter of 2027. The DIU was founded in 2015 to help the US military make faster use of emerging commercial technologies.
Jet Zero is working with Northrop Grumman and Scaled Composites. They selected Pratt Whitney for the engines.
The blended plane should be up to 50% more fuel efficient and cut emissions in half.
The first commercial plane design would target being able to hold 200 passengers. The blended wing body aircraft is a design that has been under study by NASA and others for three decades. It could also adapt to use hydrogen fuel which would then produce zero carbon emissions.
The blended-wing shape offers a unique opportunity to move past the space constraints of tube-and-wing aircraft, raising the bar for passenger and crew comfort. It would be far wider.
The JetZero blended wing aircraft integrates seamlessly into existing airport infrastructure. Its single-deck design fits existing runways and gates.
The Jet Zero cabin layout provides more aisles and more bin space with a dedicated place for every passenger’s carry-on bag. The result will be reduced turn times and improved operations for airlines and airports.
Mounting the engines on top results in much less noise. People on the ground would feel like the plane sounds 4-times farther away than a traditional tube-and-wing plane.
Older Studies of Blended Wing Planes
NASA has also jointly explored BWB (blended wing body) designs for the Boeing X-48 unmanned aerial vehicle. Studies suggested that a BWB airliner carrying from 450 to 800 passengers could achieve fuel savings of over 20 percent.
Airbus is studying a BWB design as a possible replacement for the A320neo family. A sub-scale model flew for the first time in June 2019 as part of the MAVERIC (Model Aircraft for Validation and Experimentation of Robust Innovative Controls) programme, which Airbus hopes will help it reduce CO2 emissions by up to 50% relative to 2005 levels.
The N3-X NASA concept uses a number of superconducting electric motors to drive the distributed fans to lower the fuel burn, emissions, and noise.
In 2020, Airbus presented a BWB concept as part of its ZEROe initiative and demonstrated a small-scale aircraft. In 2022, Bombardier announced its EcoJet project. In 2023, California startup JetZero announced its Z5 project, designed to carry 250 passengers, targeting the New Midmarket Airplane category.
Image showing regular tube plane and partial to full blended wing designs.
Blended Wing Planes Have Been Built
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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This is not new at all. More than 30 years ago in science et vie, french publication, they were talking about that. The tail section of the airplane pull downward so the main wing has to generate an equivalent opposite force ( lift) = more drag. The tail cost about 30 % of weight.
They did not have the material to build something that isn’t round ( fuselage) and resistant ( try crushing an egg with your hand) when pressurized at 9 PSI
Also, a wing aircraft is unstable, so you need computer/fly by wire, and you need emergency exits for regulation. It will happen, but emission zero is utopic , it cost more energy to make hydrogen ( split H from 2O…h2o) then the resulting energy. It explode a lot, hard to store and transport, we shall see.
” will make flying more spaceous and comfortable.”
Ha bloody Ha, they will just fit more seats and you will be as cramped as ever.
Hm.. But if the volume is larger but the weight lifting capability is not, then passengers should get more space, right?
Not if they waste it on using an ultra-low density, deep cryogenic fuel, like liquid Hydrogen. You’d need all that extra volume just to make it barely feasible.
Airliners are in desperate need of some start-ups making waves.
By now, cargo should all be on BWB, and passenger should all be on supersonic airliners.
I remember reading about BWB’s in PopSci as a kid…ridiculous how all these companies are dragging their feet because they have no incentive to push the boundaries.
Also, the the hell did the bloated DoD create the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU)…THAT’S WHAT DARPA IS FOR!!!
Agreed, I thought this would be the standard years ago. We keep building the same plane and talking about the future. It reminds me of the xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/678/
“It could also adapt to use hydrogen fuel which would then produce zero carbon emissions.”
Sure, come up with a design that vastly increases the available space inside the plane, and then devote all that space to huge tanks, instead of cargo.
Seriously, hydrogen is just a lousy fuel for almost every purpose except maybe upper rocket stages. It’s just ridiculously bulky. Only 7% the density of water! The result is that, while it carries a lot of energy per unit weight, the energy per unit volume is actually pretty bad.
Energetically speaking, if you had the hydrogen to begin with, you’d be better off reforming it into methane or a higher hydrocarbon; The dramatic increase in volumetric energy density would be a net energy savings, given that you’d be pushing a smaller airframe through the air.
At this efficiency and with the expected increase in battery power by the time the design will be ready for production, they should design straight to electric power planes.
I guess this would make electrical planes even more attractive? Since the energy requirement is halved, the range of an electrical plane is doubled?
Yes,better to be like Elon,and just use Methane,sustainable,we can just boil the oceans. SMR’s can produce H2 without any Carbon emissions,from water.
FIFY.
“use hydrogen fuel which would then produce zero carbon emissions”, (by ignoring the Carbon produced to obtain the Hydrogen).
Hydrogen can also be produced with wind farms:
Wind-to-Hydrogen Tech Goes to Sea
https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-hydrogen-2663997448