Let's just hope that company isn't secretly owned by Mockheed Lartin.
this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
92 points (97.9% liked)
News
23664 readers
3575 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
It would be nice to get out under the thumb of behemoths like Northrup and Lockheed. Motherfuckers build $1 proprietary bolts and charges the government $700 for that bolt. It’s fucking gross and it’s even grosser that it’s still going on. We need startups and new innovations to break to spending cycle STAT
here’s an interesting piece 60 minutes did on the subject https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pentagon-budget-price-gouging-military-contractors-60-minutes-2023-05-21/
I'm curious how the public funding element of this works. Does the government end up owning/profiting off of the company or earn some form of royalties if this concept takes off?
How it always works: someone keeps it and the public gets nothing, with the military getting a new toy they can spend more public money on.
While I see your point, it’s also important to point out that a lot of technological advancement in human history has been spearheaded (ha) by military advancements, which eventually get developed at a far more reasonable cost for civilian use.
So the takeaway here: yeah, they’re throwing a few hundred million at this, but in terms of developing a brand-new, clean-sheet transport airframe in a style that’s never been done before - and which, if successful, will potentially lead to a diametric shift in civil aerospace design - it’s really not that expensive, and there is real potential benefit here.
Same with medical research. You could argue that the the public having access to an otherwise unattainable medicine is the benefit even though we are charged out the nose for it, but I feel like medical company profits beg to differ.
While it’s true that often military developments eventually make their way to civilian applications, imagine that money was spent directly on development of in this instance a new type of civilian aircraft.
The military could still adapt the frame to their needs, and it would most likely result in a cheaper and more useful vehicle outside of helping to kill people on another continent. This would also mean much earlier and more widespread adoption than yet another patented concept locked away because the military wants to keep it for themselves for a few decades (until it’s obsolete).
And even if that development somehow ended up being less optimized than one the military would make, it would most likely still be leaps and bounds better than the eventual commercial derivatives again sold by private entities, optimized for profit.
I was (virtually) at the Aug 16 briefing. The AP article doesn't mention it, but they're calling the design the XBW-1. Cool stuff!
This reminds me a bit of Thunderbird 2.
We have been trying to make flying wings work for decades, since the jet engine I think.
The stealth bomber is one, but afaik they are horribly unstable.
What makes this different from any other attempt?
Blended wing is slightly different than flying wing but they both date to the early 20th century before jets even. Computer advancements in controls has generally been the change over the last few decades for control of the flying wings. Blended wings are a pretty wide range and include things like the SR-71, B1 Lancer, and quite a few UAVs.
Oh interesting, what is the different? Blended wing has more of a fuselage?
Exactly. The flying wing is a pretty specific design but the blended wings have a much broader spectrum of wing to fuselage ratio.
Cargo? Sure. Passengers? I'm not betting on it. I sure wouldn't want to the guy farthest from the center of the aircraft. Every banking turn would become a roller coaster ride. Plus airport infrastructure would have to change. And tubes are easy to build.