this video is sponsored by Renogy
have you ever wondered why all airplanes kind of look the same and why their design seems to never evolve well this is an industry that's proven very
resistant to change with only minor variations made on the same turbo prop and jetliners in the
past 50 years or so but NASA recently partnered with Boeing to develop what could be the next
big thing in commercial Aviation their future VS1 and vs2 prototype aircraft with The Cutting Edge
transonic truss braced Wing concept which will change the way jetliners look and fly forever
I'm Ricky and this is two-bit da Vinci
during its more than 100 Years of History Boeing has revolutionized a commercial aviation industry more than once they did this in the 1950s with
the introduction of the 707 the first commercially successful jetliner and grandfathered to almost
all modern passenger Jets then they did it again in 1970s when they introduced the wide body 747
jumbo jet with its 400 plus passenger capacity the unlocked long-haul international flights to
the masses for the first time in history most of the progress since then has just been focused on
making planes slightly bigger slightly faster and with a worldwide movement toward carbon neutrality
more efficient now efficiency is particularly important because the airline industry works
on a very tight margin due to the high fixed cost associated with buying aircraft that cost multiple
hundred million dollars each maintenance costs personnel and other fixed costs like jet fuel
that are mostly unavoidable so the best way for Airlines to cut on operational cost is to save
on fuel which means making planes more efficient the that's why your learners will spend Millions
on small tweaks to an aircraft that'll only gain them an increase of efficiency of just a couple
of percentage points but Boeing's new Wing design promises to do much more than that so how do we
make planes more efficient when you think about it it boils down to three things making them lighter
so it doesn't take the engines as much energy to move the plane from 20 to point B to improving
engine efficiency to make the most of the fuel in the tanks and three reducing drag or aerodynamic
losses associated with a solid body moving through a fluid like air the ttbw wing is a new aircraft
design concept that is being developed by NASA in collaboration with Boeing it's a high aspect
ratio swept Wing design that features a pair of aerodynamic struts and extends outward from the
fuselage to support the wing this truss structure helps to make the wings thinner reducing its
weight and improve its efficiency allowing for greater fuel savings and increased range Boeing
expects between 9 and 10 percent increases in fuel efficiency from the new Wing design alone but
coupled with lighter construction materials and a new more efficient engine which I'll talk about
more in a minute they hope to get a net increase of around 30 percent over the triple 7x or 737
Max which is already the most efficient jetliner in the world at least 12 more efficient than its
closest competitor the Airbus a350 1000 this is huge in many ways a step increase in efficiency
of 10 percent may not seem like much but remember the airliners will spend millions of dollars on
just a couple of extra percent inefficiency since the offset of fuel costs will pay for
it for example a Boeing triple seven tac-9 holds around 52 000 gallons of jet fuel but if it was
less efficient like the a350 it would need around 58 000 gallons for the same range in the case of
a jetliner of similar size with a new transonic Wing design making it 10 more efficient it would
only require 47 000 gallons of fuel so compared to an a350 Airlines would save around 11 000 gallons
of gallons of gallons of gallons sorry yeah it's crashed so compared to a350 Airlines would save
around 11 000 gallons of fuel per flight at 3.28 per gallon that adds up to a savings around 36
000 per flight the longest possible flight today lasts around 22 hours and the average turnaround
time for long-haul flights is around 90 to 120 minutes so a single airliner could in theory fly
365 Long Haul flights per year but let's consider just 300 to account for the occasional downtime
and extra maintenance and repairs that means that the extra fuel efficiency provided by the
ttbw wing will save an airline almost 11 million dollars every year on fuel alone triple that if
you add the Next Generation CFM rise engine more on that again in just a little bit this new design
also brings some key benefits for everyday people like you and me but before I get to that I think
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for starters since it reduces operational cost it has the potential to lead to lower airline
tickets on Long Haul flights not bad I know I would have benefited from that on my recent
trip to India just a couple of weeks ago also a 10 increase in fuel efficiency means a 10 decrease in
carbon emissions so these Jets will be greener than any before reducing fuel consumption by 11
000 gallons would cut down carbon emissions by 106 metric tons per flight or almost 32 000 metric
tons of carbon dioxide per year per jet liner with 25 500 jetliners in service worldwide switching
all airliners to a 10 more efficient design could reduce carbon emissions by over 800 million tons
of CO2 per year that's the equivalent of removing approximately 176 million combustion cars from the
road this Wing design is also expected to be quieter than conventional configurations both
during takeoff landing and in Flight I think that another equally important benefit of this design
is that it's an exceptional increase in efficiency from aerodynamics alone this means that this Wing
design by itself could be implemented on any type of aircraft including electric airplanes further
improving the range or payload capacity Huawei may not see any electric versions of the VS1 and vs2
prototypes we may see smaller aircraft for short haul flights to neighboring cities let's go a bit
deeper and talk about this new Wing design the key to the transonic trust braced Wing design is its
aspect ratio which is twice as high as previous Boeing airliners this is the ratio between the
wingspan or the distance from wingtip to wingtip and the wings average cord or the mean distance
from the Leading Edge or front side of the wing that faces the incoming air to the trailing Edge
or back side of the wing so the aspect ratio gives us an idea of how long versus how wide the wing is
the transonic truss braced Wing is a very high aspect ratio Wing meaning that it's very long
wind span and it's very thin so what's the point of making wings longer and thinner well there are
four key benefits High aspect ratio Wings have a lower drag coefficient compared to Wings with
a lower aspect ratio but you can can make them with the same overall surface area to generate
the same amount of lift this means that they can generate lift more efficiently High aspect
ratio Wings can also be lighter than low aspect ratio Wings which can contribute to reduced fuel
consumption and increased payload capacity and they can also generate smaller wingtip vortices
which cause drag further improving efficiency so these winds are pretty awesome but they're not
especially new we've known about this concept for decades I mean gliders use high aspect ratio wings
to fly effortlessly without an engine and those day back to the 1920s it's a natural question
is why haven't we been building all our aircraft with these types of wings to begin with as always
in engineering the answer is there's a trade-off here are the cons of a high aspect ratio Wing the
main drawback of thinned Wings is that they're not as strong as shorter sturdier wings so need
a truss structure with these struts to hold the wings in place Ergo the name truss braced Wing
their wings are also too thin to effectively be used as fuel tanks you need to put the tank
somewhere else they have a lower row rate and are generally less maneuverable than wings with
a lower aspect ratio this can be a disadvantage for certain aircraft types such as fighter jets
but not so much of a big deal for commercial airliners High aspect ratio wings are also
more susceptible to turbulence and fluttering which can cause aerodynamic problems and make
the flight less comfortable for the passengers that's something that won't have to really keep
an eye on another big issue with longer wingspans like on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is that they're
not allowed in these smaller cheaper airport Gates the maximum legal span of a gate size
for a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320 is 118 feet the Boeing triple seven is already too long and needs
foldable wingtips and so traditional Gates can accommodate all types of aircraft really massive
Wing aircraft like the 7a7 or the A380 the massive double decker Airbus aircraft required gates with
special considerations larger areas for those massive Wings which limits the number of airport
works that these planes are allowed in the VS1 and vs2 with the new ttbw Wings will be even
longer so they'll probably have foldable Wing mechanisms to retract the wings upward like an
aircraft on a Navy fighter carrier deck to be able to operate once landed on the ground these
trade-offs mostly resulted in earlier truss braced designs being more efficient but much slower than
other competing Jets and Airlines just wanted to fly faster they didn't care as much about
efficiency back then when fuel was much cheaper today's new materials and better design allow for
flight speeds of up to Mach 0.8 which is pretty much the same as a 747 at those speeds the air
that accelerates over the wings actually breaks the sound barrier and goes Supersonic and slows
down again near the trailing edge of the wing this is why we call this trans Sonic flight because
some parts of the wing are actually experiencing supersonic air While others aren't this creates a
special type of drag from the supersonic Shockwave that reduces efficiency to allow higher overall
speed the wings are swept back reducing the onset of SuperSonic air on top of the wing why are we
talking about this now well the reason why this made headlines recently is that the development
of the Boeing prototype will be funded in part by NASA in other words by the taxes we all pay NASA
granted Boeing the contract for the full-scaled crude commercial aircraft technology Pathfinder
for NASA's sustainable flight National Partnership last January 18th investing 425 million dollars
over seven years with Boeing pitching in another 725 million dollars this is such an important
project for Boeing that the company won't even bother working on a new commercial jet design
this year instead focusing all of its energy on making the game-changing cross between the
McDonald Douglas md-90 and their supersonic Ultra green aircraft research prototype the sugar volt
at the end of the project they should have two full-scale VS1 and vs2 prototypes ready for their
Maiden flight in 2028 and a commercial version by as soon as 2035 to 2040. so yes not exactly
tomorrow but pretty exciting stuff if this plays out well you will probably see other aircraft
manufacturers following the suit and building their own version of transonic jets with trust
braced wings and when it comes to engine selection there seems to be only one logical Choice the new
CFM rise engine Boeing and Airbus recently fitted their 737 and A320 family of jetliners with new
CFM leap engines 15 more efficient than their predecessors but now there's a new even more
efficient engine on the horizon I'm talking about the cfm's Revolutionary Innovation for
sustainable engines or CFM rise gotta love the marketing good stuff this is an unducted open fan
or prop fan engine is 20 more efficient than the CFM leap mainly due to a higher bypass ratio of
about 20 percent this means that the fans push 20 times more cold air to the back than the air that
it sucks to the core I think there are several reasons to believe that both the VS1 and 2 will
be equipped with the CFM rise engine these engines are designed for a cruising speed of approximately
Mach 0.8 which is is the same cruising speed intended for the ttbw wins these types of open
fan engines usually have longer propeller blades so they need to be installed high above the ground
making the new vs one and two with their High Wing design the ideal use case NASA and Boeing Target
and overall increase in efficiency of 30 percent for the VS1 and 2 which fits perfectly with the
10 increase in the wind design plus another 20 Boost from the new rise engine so it's funny in
an ironic twist of fate is that in the end the most modern of Boeing's airliners will look like
a Revisited version of a really old and slow turbo prop aircraft and as I've taken a step backwards
in time but obviously you know there's more to it than just that so after looking at some of
the details Behind these new jetliners I thought it would be interesting to look at Boeing's most
recent designs side by side and compare some specs so as you can see the vs2's wingspan is about 50
percent longer than the 737 Max which is the closest most efficient equivalent the estimated
fuel efficiencies are also added for reference notice how the 737 Max is way more efficient
than a triple seven tac-9 but I also wanted to put that efficiency into context so let's compare it
to other means of transportation like cars buses and trains the following table shows the average
passenger miles per gasoline gallon equivalent so we can compare all these Transportation methods
together this is just a way to convert all the different types of fuels out there into a
single common unit which is the gasoline gallon equivalent a couple of things stand out to me
here first the fact that we make better use of energy by ride sharing or carpooling on an ice
car than by traveling on a bus I always thought city buses were way more efficient but it turns
out it's not always the case second bones vs2 with its transonic truss braced Wing flying completely
full would have an efficiency comparable to an averagely full Transit train so it's not quite
as efficient as I would have hoped and it doesn't really compare to a fully loaded electrical train
but it's still way better than other aircraft of the day not to mention the speed benefits and
point-to-point airport routing you know how Elon Musk and SpaceX are always talking about
using Starship for InterContinental Earth to Earth travel let's see how that would compare Starship
holds approximately 250 metric tons of liquid methane which were equivalent to around 105
000 gallons of gasoline according to SpaceX it could carry around a thousand people per
trip the longest possible Earth to Earth distance is the arc along the Equator that goes from one
point to the opposite side of the earth that's a travel distance of around 12 400 miles in a
single flight so starship's efficiency in an ideal case of maximum number of passengers and a maximum
travel distance would be around 118 passenger miles per gallon equivalent so pretty much in
the ballpark of conventional aircraft but a lot worse than Boeing's new designs especially if they
reach that 30 percent increase thanks to that CFM rise engine still not bad considering that
a Starship is going into orbit and coming back again and not to mention the increase in speed
which I think would far outpace any aircraft now the only thing missing to satisfy my curiosity is
to see how the vs2 stacks up against a Tesla Model y because why not so this is super satisfying if
a full Tesla can do almost as well in terms of total efficiency as a mass transit system like
a train It means that we can make a big difference by carpooling in a Tesla furthermore if a jetliner
like the vs2 Prototype can get so much more efficient by just optimizing its wing design
imagine what we could accomplish if we went electric the development of transonic trust
braced Wings is a promising step forward making air travel more sustainable and environmentally
friendly which is one of the toughest modes of transportation to crack while Aviation may never
be as efficient and carbon neutral as other forms of transportation the improvements made
by Boeing and NASA are significant and should be celebrated as we continue to search for ways
to reduce our carbon footprint and protect the planet breakthroughs like the ttbw design give us
hope that we could finally find solutions to the problems that we faced I've seen several people
complain about why is NASA using public funds to help Boeing a private company we develop this
prototype but the fact is that Boeing would never have single-handedly invested what they needed to
to develop this new technology because it's too risky using your money in mind NASA is helping
push Aeronautics forward and this will benefit us all at least anybody who travels via air
it'll mean improvements to Bowen's bottom line of course but that's what companies do this is
in large part why companies in aviation industry don't take more risks that's why planes look the
same the design approval process flight testing that entire process of design to a new aircraft
can take decades sometimes too and that's why you can't really take too many risks because this is
people's lives at 38 000 feet that we're talking about and this is a pretty big deal I think it's
so ironic that one of these new ttbw Wings looks like designed from in the past back when
we didn't have structures and composite Alloys and aluminum strong enough to hold those big
wings but now we do it's just they're getting thinner and thinner it's really a cool story
and I can't wait to see the first aircraft with this technology taken off at an airport near you
all right thanks so much for watching if you like this video check out this one next I think you're
going to like until next time I'm Ricky this is stupid DaVinci thank you so much for watching