Boeing retires the 747 as NASA invests in sustainable plane design

After greater than 50 years in manufacturing, the ultimate 747 is taking to the skies. Boeing delivered the final 747 ever constructed to Atlas Air on Tuesday. Aviation fanatic John Travolta was there and mentioned the airplane was the “most well-thought-out and most secure plane ever constructed.” Richard Branson mentioned “farewell to an exquisite beast” in a Reuters interview, bemoaning the excessive gasoline prices for transatlantic flights on the jumbo jet. Airways had an identical perspective, as slowing 747 gross sales mirrored increased demand for smaller, extra fuel-efficient planes. In reality, sustainability is on Boeing’s thoughts as effectively.

Air journey is a huge contributor to local weather change, and it’s getting extra widespread. Flying accounts for as much as 4 p.c of greenhouse gasoline emissions in the USA, and as increasingly folks fly, the United Nations expects carbon dioxide emissions from planes to triple by 2050. A transatlantic flight produces a couple of ton of CO2 per passenger, which quantities to about half the carbon footprint an individual would produce by consuming meals for a 12 months. The Boeing 747, which might seat over 500 folks, is the third-largest airplane within the sky, so you may think about the environmental price of conserving the so-called “Queen of the Skies” flying.

This isn’t the top of the 747 — current planes may stay within the air for many years — however it’s a pivotal second for the way forward for aviation. A pair weeks earlier than the 747’s huge send-off, Boeing and NASA introduced a serious partnership, the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator undertaking, to provide a wacky-looking single-aisle airplane that guarantees to slash gasoline consumption for industrial plane. The brand new plane seems to be like a large glider with lengthy, skinny wings propped up by diagonal struts to cut back drag. It’s known as the transonic truss-braced wing idea, and if broadly adopted may rework sustainable air journey as we all know it.

Not like automobiles, you may’t merely bolt a battery onto a airplane and make it electrical. (Making an electrical car is extra difficult than that, however you get the purpose.) Enhancements to airplanes occur in small increments over the course of many years. Sometimes, a single-digit discount in an plane’s gasoline consumption could be significant. Boeing says the improvements within the new truss-braced wing idea will quantity to a 30 p.c discount. That’s precisely the form of leap NASA wished to get out of the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator undertaking, which Boeing gained.

“For those who assume that, or have the notion that, aviation hasn’t been engaged on sustainability or environmentally friendliness, that’s a nasty notion as a result of each era of plane that’s come out has been 15, 20, 25 p.c higher than the one it replaces,” Wealthy Wahls, NASA’s sustainable flight nationwide partnership mission integration supervisor, advised Recode. “What we’re attempting to do now’s skip a era.”

The massive concept behind the transonic truss-braced wing idea is an replace to the plane configuration, or the airplane’s structure. Not like the low-wing design that dominates the industrial plane configuration as we speak, the brand new Boeing design has wings that stretch excessive of the airplane’s tubular physique. This reduces drag, but it surely additionally permits for a greater variety of propulsion methods, from larger jet engines to uncovered propellers. It’s additionally quick. The “transonic” a part of the idea’s title refers to its capacity to fly simply shy of the velocity of sound, or round 600 miles per hour.

NASA likes this concept a lot it’s investing $425 million into the undertaking underneath a Funded Area Act Settlement. Boeing and different companions will chip in an extra $300 million. As soon as Boeing builds a full-scale demonstrator plane, NASA says it is going to full testing within the late 2020s, and if all goes effectively, the general public may see the brand new applied sciences in industrial plane someday within the 2030s.

NASA

For those who squint your eyes, although, the brand new transonic truss-braced wing idea seems to be an terrible lot just like the industrial plane you see on runways as we speak. That’s not a nasty factor. For one, it’s not a radical redesign — in contrast to, say, the very odd-looking blended wing X-48 — which may scare off passengers. The same design additionally has some advantages for the manufacturing course of. However on the finish of the day, new plane configuration alone gained’t make these next-generation planes greener, in line with Brent Cobleigh, undertaking supervisor for NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator undertaking.

“Lighter-weight supplies, higher aerodynamics, higher propulsion methods, extra direct operations,” Cobleigh mentioned, “you want all of these collectively to squeeze as a lot effectivity out as we are able to, to make the largest affect.”

As a result of, once more, it’s actually arduous to make airplanes extra environment friendly. And plane configuration is only one piece of the puzzle. Extra environment friendly propulsion methods and cleaner jet gasoline are the opposite two transferring elements that want to suit collectively. Additional down the road, we’ll see designs for hybrid propulsion methods that use each jet gasoline and batteries to energy a airplane. Totally electrical planes are already taking to the skies, though it will likely be many years earlier than we see huge battery-powered passenger plane. Within the close to time period, hydrogen more and more looks as if a viable alternative for the fossil fuels we at the moment put in planes. Rolls-Royce and easyJet efficiently examined a hydrogen-powered jet engine, the world’s first, just some months in the past.

What we’ll see earlier than these huge breakthroughs are extra incremental enhancements. Only a couple weeks earlier than the NASA-Boeing announcement, for instance, Rolls-Royce confirmed off a brand new UltraFan propulsion system for plans, which it says presents a 25 p.c leap in effectivity and may run on 100% sustainable aviation gasoline, or SAF, which is a biofuel derived from waste materials. Though it’s not a traditional fossil gasoline, SAF nonetheless spews carbon into the environment, and it’s additionally in brief provide. Some industrial flights already use SAF combined with standard jet gasoline, and United did a demo final 12 months with a flight from Chicago to Washington, DC, powered by 100% SAF. An innovation like SAF actually is a transfer in the fitting course — what you may name an evolutionary change — but it surely’s not what’s wanted to make air journey as inexperienced as it may be.

“The revolutionary change could be to alter the power supply, like, for those who change to hydrogen or for those who did hydrogen gasoline cells,” defined Marty Bradley, a sustainable training educator and advisor who labored at Boeing when the corporate was exploring early truss-braced wing ideas. “That may be that huge leap.”

This story was first printed within the Recode publication. Join right here so that you don’t miss the subsequent one!