Horizon’s innovative shape promises greener flights and increased comfort

Driven by growing global demand for air travel, aviation emissions have grown faster in recent decades than emissions from rail, road or shipping. Solutions to reverse this trend are emerging slowly: sustainable aviation fuel, which if properly produced and used can reduce in-flight emissions by 80%, could provide two-thirds of the emissions reductions needed for aviation to reach its net zero target by 2050 But there is not enough of it, and at best SAF will account for only 0.53% of all jet fuel use in 2024, far from the level needed to achieve the impact.

As airlines and regulators wrestle with ideas to decarbonize the industry, some engineers suggest an entirely new type of aircraft shape is needed to make significant savings on fuel consumption and therefore emissions. This does away with the traditional tube-and-wing design, which had been the mainstay of commercial aviation for 100 years, in favor of a so-called “blended wing body” in which the wing area takes up most of the fuselage. creates an unusual appearance of the aircraft.

In 2020, Airbus created a small fly-by-wire hybrid wing demonstrator to test a design that the company said could save up to 20% on fuel. In 2023, California-based JetZero announced plans to create a similarly designed aircraft with a capacity of more than 200 passengers and set an ambitious goal of entering service by 2030.

Now San Diego-based Natilus has joined the race with Horizon, a blended-wing aircraft that is also designed to carry about 200 passengers while producing half the emissions and using 30% less fuel than current Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 aircraft. the models he represents. trying to compete with.

“The narrow-body market, which Horizon fits into, will be the largest market in the next 20 years,” says Alexey Matyushev, CEO and co-founder of Natilus. “Despite all the challenges that I think the industry is facing, I think for the first time in history there is an opportunity to build a Boeing or Airbus equivalent.”

New passenger experience

Natilus, founded in 2016, previously announced a cargo drone called Kona, which also uses the same innovative shape. Matyushev says the mixed-wing airframe design originated in the 1990s from McDonnell Douglas, a major American aerospace manufacturer that merged with Boeing in 1997. Boeing has never commercialized the blended-wing aircraft, but has studied the concept and created an unmanned prototype of the X-48.

According to Natilus, Kona has received 400 orders, and a full-scale model will be built and put into service within the next two years. Most of the technology will then be transferred to Horizon, which will have a conventional cabin and crew and, according to Matyushev, enter service by 2030 – an extremely ambitious goal, since it would be unprecedented for an entirely new aircraft to go from design to 2030. just six years away from full certification.

“One of the challenges with blended wing airframe design is stability and controllability,” he explains. “I think that’s where McDonnell Douglas and Boeing really stumbled – how do you stabilize the airplane?”

He says one way to achieve stabilization is to use sophisticated flight control systems, mainly computers, which Matyushev notes caused problems with the Boeing 737 Max.

Another option is aerodynamics, or the design of the plane’s surfaces, which Matyushev says is the route taken by Natilus and what sets it apart from JetZero.

The new form has some important advantages. “Drag is reduced by 30%, but at the same time you can actually reduce the weight of the aircraft to accommodate the same amount of passengers or cargo, which is very unique,” ​​he says. “A small plane has smaller engines that use less fuel. So if you add those two together, it would result in a reduction in emissions (emissions) per passenger seat of about 50%.”

The much larger fuselage, which no longer looks like a tube, opens up the possibility of different on-board layouts. “We have about 30% more space than a traditional aircraft,” explains Matyushev. “I think many of our customers are thinking about improving the passenger experience. Could you bring back the living room? Are there any other seats on the plane that could be allocated for such long flights?”

Not everything in Horizon will be completely new; for example, the aircraft will use existing engine technologies, leaving no room for hydrogen or electric options. “There’s a joke in aviation: never put a new engine in a new plane. It’s too risky,” says Matyushev. For the same reason, Horizon is designed to fit anywhere a Boeing 737 or Airbus A320 can fit, without requiring any changes to airport infrastructure.

Uncharted Territory

A series of delivery failures that left airlines waiting until the 2030s for new aircraft has created a “window of opportunity” for a new market entrant to disrupt the status quo, according to Gary Critchlow, aviation analyst at Aviation News Limited.

“However, this window is very narrow,” he says. “The key benefit for operators is the commonality of flight crew qualifications. The success of the 737 Max and A320neo is due in no small part to their ability to seamlessly integrate into existing 737 and A320 operations respectively, with flight crews requiring very little additional training to make the transition.”

However, teething problems are common with every new aircraft, and with a new, untested manufacturer and a new, untested design, it’s almost inevitable. “(Horizon) will have a completely different seating and cargo loading layout and will require a completely different flight and cabin crew. Avoiding this operational headache and providing reliable, scalable support when it happens is likely the biggest challenge Natilus will face in convincing potential customers to buy Horizon rather than waiting for a more traditional 737 Max or A320neo replacement.”

Critchlow also notes potential obstacles to the aircraft’s path to certification by aviation authorities. “The problem with any greenfield project has always been the huge upfront costs of development and certification. In terms of certification, conventional aircraft such as the 737 Max 7 and 10, 777-X, A321neo XLR and COMAC C919 have faced, and in some cases still face, significant regulatory delays beyond the original deadlines set by their manufacturers. With a design as unusual as the blended wing body, I expect regulators to be even more cautious.”

Matyushev is aware that Natilus is entering uncharted territory: “There are a lot of questions about how to build a hybrid body at full scale, because all we have is wind tunnel data right now, and then scale up prototypes, but no one has actually actually didn’t build it on a full scale.” “, he says.

With Natilus currently working on a full-scale prototype, some of these questions may soon be answered.

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