mxaxai wrote:The article I referred to in the original post, which quotes said CEO, says that the decision is 6 to 18 months away, which I translated to anywhere between early 2019 and early 2020. And 2019 + 6 years development is approximately 2025. So far we all agree, Mr. Muilenberg included.
Yes, I see how you got there now.
It'll be interesting to see if more laminar flow wings will impact NMA thinking.
It seems to fall into the category of "known unknowns".
They know it exists, they can probably use some ball park numbers to estimate its future impact, but not much more than that.
The article suggests laminar flow can be maintained at higher speeds than thought, but still at the low end of the narrowbody cruise speed spectrum.
If NMA is aiming for 8+ hour flights, it probably wouldn't want to accept a slowish cruise speed.
Seems NMA would not be side tracked due to more laminar flow wings, but NSA probably would need to fully consider such technology, but this is just a guess.
It'd kind of suck to have the "last low laminar flow wing" but you can't sit around waiting for the next new thing to be mature, otherwise you'd never ship anything.
A 787 style wing will still kick the ass of the 70s era 757 wing.