Passengers in the wings: is this what the aircraft of the future will look like?

Pressure on aircraft manufacturers has been growing steadily for several years. The background: Your customers - in other words, the airlines all over the world - are demanding ever more economical models. Firstly, because they can only exist in the price war between the different airlines. On the other hand, however, because the pressure from politicians has to reduce CO2 emissions. The world airline association IATA has promised to cut emissions by half by 2050. At the same time, developing completely new models also costs a lot of time and money. If the market then develops differently than expected, gigantic bad investments threaten. This happened to Airbus, for example, on the giant A380. At the largest Asian air show in Singapore, the group has now presented a new innovative concept

The fuel consumption is significantly reduced
More specifically, it is a so-called blended wing body aircraft called Maveric. It is a construction with a flattened fuselage that flows smoothly into the two wings. The cabin with the seats of the passengers was saved to a certain extent. You are now sitting directly in the wings. The great advantage of this design: Thanks to the better aerodynamics, fuel consumption can be reduced by around 20 percent while maintaining the same performance. Airbus has already built a Maveric for test purposes. Although it only has a wingspan of 3.20 meters, it has actually already flown for it. Further test flights are scheduled to take place later this year. The management will then decide on the future of the project. So it is still unclear whether Airbus will ever mass-produce a blended wing body aircraft.

The flight experience of passengers is changing
Because the special design also has disadvantages. The control for the pilot is much more complicated. However, this could possibly be compensated for by constantly improving assistance systems. What is more problematic, however, is the fact that the flight experience would change significantly for some passengers. Because today you hardly notice anything from most flight maneuvers in the cabin. However, if you sit directly in the wing, you are exposed to certain forces when flying a curve. Airbus engineers are currently working on solutions to alleviate this problem. But you won't be able to completely switch off this effect. The view from the window should also be a thing of the past.