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tyranicalteabagger t1_iwfofk9 wrote

Reply to comment by finedrive in The Weird-Looking, Fuel-Efficient Planes You Could Be Flying in One Day by rchaudhary

Flying wings are inheriantly unstable. There's a reason there wasn't a safe design until you had computer controlled flight surfaces.

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iqisoverrated t1_iwfulpn wrote

The controlling of these planes isn't the issue (that's solved. If the electronics fail you're screwed in a traditional jet just as much as you would be in a flying wing).

The issue is airports. Airports are built for planes with certain dimensions in mind. You can't just bring in an new (big) form factor - you'd have to revamp every (major) airport in the world. That's not going to happen.

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Griiinnnd----aaaagge t1_iwfp7bi wrote

The Nazis were about to go hog wild on those too.

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tyranicalteabagger t1_iwglukn wrote

No. They weren't. We developed them after ww2 also and then abandoned them until the computer age; because they were unstable and dangerous without a computer to do fast adjustments to control surfaces.

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