The shape of flying’s future

Seeing is believing when it comes to the JetZero Z5 mock-up.

Not that I ever doubted the blended wing body concept, which aims to deliver a 50 per cent reduction in fuel burn simply due to the shape of the craft.

Tucked away without fanfare at California’s Long Beach Airport on Donald Douglas Drive is JetZero’s headquarters. In fact, there is hardly any signage to make you look twice.

But airlines are taking a close look at the enormous possibilities this aircraft could hold in the quest for net zero emissions by 2050.

JetZero has taken over the Gulfstream facility at Long Beach Airport and has both the mock-up and the iron bird on display.

The company has emerged as a major player with a replacement for the 240 to 300-seat Boeing 767, 757 and A300 market, with its Z5 to capture the so-called middle of the market.

The concept uses the same baseline blended wing body configuration for an advanced tanker-transport for the US Air Force in a multi-role demonstrator reminiscent of the Boeing 367-80, which in the 1950s led to the development of the 707 airliner and KC-135 tanker.

The blended wing body concept combines the airframe structure and aerodynamics to reduce weight and drag while enabling the fuselage to contribute to lift.

JetZero co-founder and chief executive Tony O’Leary said a number of issues had driven development of the project.

“Climate is a great concern and the industry has huge issues with fuel burn and razor-thin margins,” he said.

“And that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are so many issues to address and we are, fundamentally, not getting a better solution.”

Mr O’Leary said the JetZero Z5 airframe solved those problems.

“It’s simple and straightforward, when we have hardly changed the configuration since the 707 with the propulsion side delivering most of the gains,” he said.

“Now we make this change in the shape because the planet demands it and the airlines demand it.

“We go to fifty per cent lower fuel burn and emissions. It’s physics: lift, weight, drag and thrust.”

Mr O’Leary said that, while impressive, engine gains more recently had become complex as the industry strives to get to net zero.

Another huge plus for the JetZero design, he said, is that it would use existing already proven technology.

JetZero secured financial backing from the US Air Force last August to build a demonstrator for the Z5, with the projected 50 per cent cut in fuel consumption to open the doors of the airline industry as well the Pentagon.

The US Air Force’s $US235 million will involve JetZero’s partner Northrop Grumman for its pedigree in flying-wing stealth bombers.

“Blended wing body is one of the single most impactful technology opportunities for future US Air Force aircraft, both in terms of capability improvement and greenhouse gas emissions reduction,” the air force said.

The demonstrator will be powered by Pratt & Whitney’s Geared Turbofan.

Also known as a hybrid wing body, JetZero configuration is tailless and more efficient than a conventional tube-and-wing design because of its reduced wetted area, friction drag and lower form drag. Blended wing bodies are also inherently quieter than current airliners because the airframe shields most of the noise from engines mounted on the upper surface.

JetZero’s Z5 design, the first in a proposed family of Z-series aircraft, is optimised for a range of at least 9,200 kilometres and up to 250 passengers.

The all-composite aircraft has a wide single deck and high-aspectratio wing. Although this extends the wingspan to close to 61 metres (similar to an Airbus A330 used by Qantas), the body length is shorter than a Boeing 767. Despite the overall size, JetZero says the midmarket aircraft will be about half the weight and require half the power of aircraft it replaces, such as the 767.

From a passenger perspective, the Z5 will have four aisles with seats set as doubles. Each modular zone will be in a two-two configuration with abundant overhead storage space.

Mr O’Leary told Business News the configuration options were endless and offered airlines an entirely new passenger pleasing palette.

“Boarding will be a dream,” he said.

Aimed at entry into service in the 2030s, the Z5’s reduced weight and power requirements are designed to enable the use of derivatives of existing single-aisle engines such as the CFM Leap 1 or Pratt & Whitney PW1100G.

The aircraft is equipped with mostly conventional systems, simplifying development and reducing cost and risk.

The plan is founded on several design breakthroughs, which differentiate JetZero’s proposed blended wing body from many previous concepts. One of these is a pivoting nose gear, which increases body angle for take-off; thereby solving many of the pitch control and rotation challenges that hampered earlier designs.

For take-off, the nose gear extends by several feet to increase the angle of attack by about six degrees, allowing the blended wing body to produce lift to amplify the effect of the aircraft’s elevons.

The design enables the Z5 to reach pitch attitude faster, which in turn allows lift-off speed to be lower and reduces the demand for high take-off thrust.

Another bonus is that it eliminates the requirement for leading-edge high-lift slats and reduces the size of the trailing-edge flaps.

An aspect of the blended wing body design that raises concern relates to the inefficiencies of pressurising a non-circular cabin cross-section.

However, JetZero said advances in composites for primary structures, added to the single-deck configuration of the Z5, eliminated the problem of constructing pressure vessels in a flattened fuselage shape.

While the initial design was based around conventional tanks for sustainable aviation fuel, the company said the blended wing body configuration provided ample internal volume for liquid-hydrogen fuel tanks in the future.

JetZero is aiming for first flight in 2027.

NASA and Boeing flew an 8.5 per cent-scale blended wing body demonstrator in 2007, known as the X-48B but Boeing, incredibly, walked away from that concept.

Mr O’Leary said private investors would also contribute funds to the development project.

JetZero co-founder and chief technology officer Mark Page is part of a team that includes Bob Liebeck and Blaine Rawdon, who invented the concept.

The Z5 tanker also fits into the USAF’s push to have stealth aircraft to penetrate enemy airspace.

Former Airbus Americas and International Aero Engines chief executive, and a member of JetZero’s advisory board, Barry Eccleston, said the industry needed change.

“You have all these tailwinds from the environment, the air force and NASA, plus you have the technology tailwind, which makes it viable when it wasn’t before,” Mr Eccleston told US publication Aviation Week last year.

“Then you set that against the fact that Boeing and Airbus are doing nothing new in this space and you say, ‘We can’t sit here and do nothing’. The industry deserves it, and the industry needs it.

“If you’ve got something you know will be thirty to fifty per cent better than today’s products, why would you not do it?”

• Ed’s note: Elements of this article are taken from the soon to be available book, Greening Wings, by Guy Norris and Geoffrey Thomas