Comment by torginus
6 hours ago
It's weird how analog the entire field of aerospace has been - I remember reading articles in the 2000s (and before), of how computational simulations a are going to unlock crazy new never before seen designs, controllable via novel control surfaces only possible thanks to novel control surfaces whose position is determined via literal supercomputers onboard the plane. And how X-planes are going to become unnecessary, because everything a wind tunnel test could tell you can be predicted via simulation.
Fast forward to today, there's been no aerodynamically novel aircraft developed in the past decades, and from what I read, wind tunnel and glider tests are still necessary to validate aerodynamics during complex conditions, like manuevering.
Computational simulations have been involved in aircraft design for decades. However, at some point you still have to verify the simulations with real world tests. I think (as a non-expert) the main reason no aerodynamically novel aircraft have been developed lately is because we have essentially optimised designs, already. To be clear, I am not saying that we can't do better. I am saying that the manufacturing (and other) cost of incremental improvements is large and the benefit is small. For commercial aircraft (as an example only), it is really hard to beat a tube with wings for the lowest cost of moving large numbers of people or volumes of cargo. Military aircraft with specialised roles are a bit more varied, and a lot more expensive to build and fly.
I think there's also a lot of "if we don't change too much, we have a pretty good chance to not face issues getting the aircraft certified", and "if we change the aircraft too much it'll cause issues where airports have to alter their infrastructure" (which is relevant for things like the blended wing research that's popped up recently).
There's a ton of legacy in overall airline/aircraft operations that discourages big changes.
It happens every now and again on here: someone comes up with like a 2% improvement in aerodynamics, and people are unimpressed. Meanwhile airlines are basically scrambling to get it rolled into their next-gen purchases because it's the biggest improvement in costs in a decade.
A 2% improvement that only costs 2% more to manufacture, sure.
A 2% improvement that costs 200% more to manufacture would be nonsensical to seriously propose.
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