Skyray 48-Boeing & NASA's prototype plane is the world's biggest RC plane
Take a peek at this recently released NASA video of the most advanced RC (radio controlled) model plane. The 10-minute video documents the perfect flight of Skyray 48, the Boeing-NASA prototype of what could be the future of commercial aviation. Designs derived from the X-48B will have less power consumption and fewer emissions, while increasing carrying capacity and speed compared with current cargo and passenger aircraft.
The plane took off last year from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, in California, controlled from the ground by Boeing pilot Norm Howell.
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Still surprising is that NASA is not publicly discussing the inherent flaws in this design. And before you start to flame, consider the following: conventional passenger and cargo planes---and even ships which travel on water---all have a common cylindrical design (like a pencil) for a very basic reason: center of gravity. When a plane banks in the air, or ship rolls in the sea, people and/or objects placed along the center line of the fuselage or hull do not experience the movement to any significant degree. People standing in the aisles do not go flying head over heels, and drinks on trays do not tip over. The farther out from the center line you place passengers or cargo, the more they are subject to the pitch and angle of the craft. Every illustration I have ever seen of such aircraft designs show passengers and cargo spread out within the entire cubic area of the wing. The slightest turn the plane would make would be akin to a severe roller-coaster ride for all but the the passengers situated closest to the center of the plane.
Go find a see-saw at the playground with two kids on both ends and stand in the middle as they go up and down, simulating the wings of a plane as it banks or turns in mid-air. Difficult, but hardly impossible. Now try that at either end as it goes up and down. Definitely impossible.
Now imagine such a plane packed full of cargo. Every time even the smallest item is removed or added, everything must be rearranged to suit balance---just like on current airliners, but to a much more finite and time-consuming degree.