KLM and a team at the Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology have teamed up for a possible new answer to the future shape of flight, and it’s a triangle, or, as they put it, a flying V.
Their radical design takes the stats of Airbus’s A350 and bends them out of shape a bit. The plan is based on the same wingspan and passenger capacity of the A350, but with far lower fuel consumption due to the shape. Passengers would be seated along the edges of the V.
The initial design is for a plane that would, like current jets, run on kerosene, but could be adapted to other fuels. KLM and the University hope to show a mock-up full-size interior and a flying scale model at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport by October, but the plane, if built, is at least 20 years away.
