London - It has three decks, tilting Harrier-style jets and breaks itself up into pieces during a crash landing – and it could be the future of air travel.
Called Sky Whale, the concept aeroplane is set to be bigger than an Airbus A380, look like a spacecraft and have “self-healing” wings that repair themselves.
The aircraft would split passengers into three classes, each with their own deck, in a modern-day version of the Titanic’s strict division of passengers.
Every passenger would additionally have virtual reality windows to keep themselves entertained on long flights. The AWWA Sky Whale was created by Spanish designer Oscar Viñals and is so big it was described by Dvice as looking “more like something thought up for the Transformers movie franchise than an aircraft”.
The tilting engines would make it possible for the Sky Whale to take off on the spot – and, according to the plans, if it crashes the passenger section would separate from the wings to reduce the loss of life.
The craft matches advances in technology with a huge capacity of 755 passengers, making it economically viable for an airline.
The Sky Whale would have a wingspan of 88m compared with 80m for an Airbus A380 and 64m for a Boeing 747.
The three classes would be “tourist class”, the equivalent of economy, “tourist class with sky views” or business class, and finally first class, which would also have sky views and “all conceivable luxuries”.
It is not clear how passengers would be able to look at the view, though given the size of the craft it is likely to have larger windows than those fitted to the back of current plane seats.
Those in economy would not be without, though – their windows would be fitted with virtual reality screens so passengers could see whatever they wanted to.
Viñals said the Sky Whale would be built with advanced new materials made up of ceramic or fibre composites.
It would have advanced “active wings” powered by a hybrid turbo-electric propulsion system making them much more efficient than today.
The Sky Whale would have a double fuselage meaning it could go longer without refuelling and would have micro solar cells on the wings so that it could draw power from the sun.
According to Viñals, the engines could tilt to up to 45 degrees meaning they could land on tiny runways anywhere.
Writing about the way the plane could break up, Viñals said: “The disposition of the wings and its architecture separates from the airplane’s fuselage like a security measure, that in a hypothetical fatal case of an emergency landing, these could auto-break up to reduce the damages on the passenger section.”
The effect of all the technology is to reduce drag, fuel consumption and weight, making it one of the greenest aircraft imaginable. – The Daily Mail