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Old 01-27-2020 | 08:09 AM
  #139  
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rickair7777
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From: Engines Turn or People Swim
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Originally Posted by Name User

I've read that the BWB has issues with evacuation times though,
It also has issues with fitting on existing gates.... ie it won't. Need to re-engineer all gates at all commercial airports to support wholesale use of BWB. And it will need more real estate to fit the same number of planes. Or they have to come up with some scheme to tow them onto the gate sidweays, but the wingspan might still be too long for the current footprint.

So you have a chicken vs. egg issue... who's going to pay to reconstruct airports to handle a plane that doesn't exist? Who's going to build a plane which can't use existing terminals?

I think you'll see modified wing and tube designs first, ex strut-braced wings which can fold up on the ground (ala 777X).
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