Originally Posted by
Grumble
The 380 actually utilizes a lot something called GLARE which is a glass reinforced aluminum composite. Weird stuff.
All those shapes you mentioned were run through the 3XX design phase. The 380 uses an “ovoid” shape which is what Boeing’s floating now. They looked at some pretty wierd fuselage shapes but you’re right... the traditional round tube is dead.
By ovoid do you mean something like an inverted bowl, allowing the cargo hold to be bigger yet keeping roughly the same frontal area?
Cheers,
Biff