Flying wings and blended wing-fuselage concepts

It has long been the dream of aircraft designers to produce civil airliners with no separate tail or fuselage, as with the B2 Spirit bomber (Fig. 4.19). The advantages would include much lower aerodynamic drag, and reduced weight. There are, however, several problems. Much of the structural load on a civil aircraft derives from the stresses due to pressurisation of the cabin, and by far the most efficient cross-sectional shape is a circle. Horizontally-arranged double or multiple bubble arrangements may be used, but passenger access between the bubbles then becomes an issue. Longitudinal stability considera­tions mean that the range of centre of gravity positions is relatively restricted, so passenger movements might need to be controlled. There are also difficulties involved in access and in the placing of passenger external view windows. None of these problems is insuperable, but the real constraint would be the very high costs of such a radical development.